Developing Feeds with Rss and Atom

Description:

Perhaps the most explosive technological trend over the past two years has been blogging. As a matter of fact, it's been reported that the number of blogs during that time has grown from 100,000 to 4.8 million-with no end to this growth in sight.

What's the technology that makes blogging tick? The answer is RSS--a format that allows bloggers to offer XML-based feeds of their content. It's also the same technology that's incorporated into the websites of media outlets so they can offer material (headlines, links, articles, etc.) syndicated by other sites.

As the main technology behind this rapidly growing field of content syndication, RSS is constantly evolving to keep pace with worldwide demand. That's where Developing Feeds with RSS and Atom steps in. It provides bloggers, web developers, and programmers with a thorough explanation of syndication in general and the most popular technologies used to develop feeds.

This book not only highlights all the new features of RSS 2.0-the most recent RSS specification-but also offers complete coverage of its close second in the XML-feed arena, Atom. The book has been exhaustively revised to explain:

• metadata interpretation
  
• the different forms of content syndication
  
• the increasing use of web services
  
• how to use popular RSS news aggregators on the market

After an introduction that examines Internet content syndication in general (its purpose, limitations, and traditions), this step-by-step guide tackles various RSS and Atom vocabularies, as well as techniques for applying syndication to problems beyond news feeds. Most importantly, it gives you a firm handle on how to create your own feeds, and consume or combine other feeds.

If you're interested in producing your own content feed, Developing Feeds with RSS and Atom is the one book you'll want in hand.

 

 

Table of Contents:

Preface

1. Introduction

     What Are RSS and Atom for?

     A Short History of RSS and Atom

     Why Syndicate Your Content?

     Legal Implications

2. Using Feeds

     Web-Based Applications

     Desktop Applications

     Other Cunning Techniques

     Finding Feeds to Read

3. Feeds Without Programming

     From Email

     From a Search Engine

     From Online Stores

4. RSS 2.0

     Bringing Things Up to Date

     The Basic Structure

     Producing RSS 2.0 with Blogging Tools

     Introducing Modules

     Creating RSS 2.0 Feeds

5. RSS 1.0

     Metadata in RSS 2.0

     Resource Description Framework

     RDF in XML

     Introducing RSS 1.0

     The Specification in Detail

     Creating RSS 1.0 Feeds

6. RSS 1.0 Modules

     Module Status

     Support for Modules in Common Applications

     Other RSS 1.0 Modules

7. The Atom Syndication Format

     Introducing Atom

     The Atom Entry Document in Detail

     Producing Atom Feeds

8. Parsing and Using Feeds

     Important Issues

     JavaScript Display Parsers

     Parsing for Programming

     Using Regular Expressions

     Using XSLT

     Client-Side Inclusion

     Server-Side Inclusion

9. Feeds in the Wild

     Once You Have Created Your Simple RSS Feed

     Publish and Subscribe

     Rolling Your Own: LinkPimp PubSub

     LinkpimpClient.pl

10. Unconventional Feeds

     Apache Logfiles

     Code TODOs to RSS

     Daily Doonesbury

     Amazon.com Wishlist to RSS

     FedEx Parcel Tracker

     Google to RSS with SOAP

     Last-Modified Files

     Installed Perl Modules

     The W3C Validator to RSS

     Game Statistics to Excel

     Feeds by SMS

     Podcasting Weather Forecasts

     Having Amazon Produce Its Own RSS Feeds

     Cross-Poster for Movable Type

11. Developing New Modules

     Namespaces and Modules Within RSS 2.0 and Atom

     Case Study: mod_Book

     Extending Your Desktop Reader

     Introducing AmphetaDesk

A. The XML You Need for RSS

B. Useful Sites and Software

Index