Content Syndication with RSS

Preface

This book is about RSS, the massively popular content-syndication technology. From distributing headlines across web sites and delivering complete content to specialist applications, to providing the building blocks of the Semantic Web, RSS is one of the Internet’s fastest growing technologies.

There are over one million RSS feeds available across the Web; this book shows you how to read them and how to create your own. This book covers:

• RSS 0.91, 0.92, 1.0, and 2.0 in detail

• How to create and parse feeds

• Extending RSS through modules

• RDF and the Semantic Web

• Web-based aggregators

• Desktop readers

• Publish and Subscribe

Audience

This book was written with two somewhat interrelated groups in mind:

Web developers and web site authors

This book should be read by all web developers who want to share their site with others by offering RSS-based feeds of their content. This group includes everyone from bloggers and amateur journalists, to those running large-budget, multiuser sites. From multinational news organizations to neighborhood sports groups, the use of RSS can extend the reach, power, and utility of your product — this book shows you how.

Developers

This book is also for developers who want to use the content that other people are syndicating. This group includes everyone from fan-site developerss wanting the latest gaming news, or intranet builders needing up-to-date financial information on the corporate Web, to developers looking to incorporate news feeds into artificially intelligent systems or build data-sharing applications across platforms. For you, this book delves into the interpretation of metadata, different forms of content syndication, and the increasing use of web services technology in this field.