RSS and Atom formats have evolved over time to support syndication of content on the social web. RSS is used to push updates and news to users, while Atom enables describing web resources with additional metadata. The Atom Publishing Protocol allows creating, reading, updating and deleting resources via HTTP and XML, powering applications like blogs and content management systems.
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RSS and Atom in the Social Web
1. RSS and Atom in the Social Web Dr. Harry Chen CMSC 491S/691S March 10, 2008
2. Agenda RSS and Atom – history and differences Their use in Social Web applications Atom Publishing Protocol Publishing RSS in gnizr
3. What’s RSS? RSS R eally S imple S yndication (RSS 2.0) R DF S ite S ummary (RSS 1.0, RSS 0.90) R ich S ite S ummary (RSS 0.91) There is a story behind all those names…
4. Before RSS (before 1997) Before blogs and feeds, PointCast experimented news “push and pull”.
5. The Birth of RDF PointCast technology was later succeed by the Meta Content Framework (MCF) sometimes btw. 1995-97 by R.V. Guha*. Guha left Apple and joined Netscape. In 1997, Guha led the creation of Resource Description Framework (RDF) * Guha now leads Google Custom Search @ Google http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramanathan_V._Guha
6. Netscape created “My Netscape” portal in 1999. RDF was used to created a language for describing content information in the portal. RSS 0.90 was born. RSS 0.91 followed (mainly cleanups) … the end of RSS at Netscape. (~1999) The Birth of RSS Note: RSS has its roots in RDF
7. RSS at the Forkroad RSS-Dev Working Group (R.V. Guha) Dave Winer RSS 0.91 RSS 1.0 (Dec. 2000) RSS 0.93, 0.94 (withdrawn) RSS 2.0 (Sept 2002)
8. The Birth of Confusion So many different syndication formats. RSS 0.90, RSS 0.91 RSS 0.93, RSS 0.94 RSS 1.0 RSS 2.0 The Community was confused. Which format should I use? If want to make changes, who should I talk to?
10. Atom Atom is a syndication format Created because the official RSS 2.0 spec. doesn’t permit changes for stability reasons Since no one “owns” RSS, it’s difficult to create new iterative standards based either 1.0 or 2.0 The Community sees Atom as the solution to the problem. AtomEnabled http://atomenabled.org
11. About Atom XML, not RDF Two different specifications Atom Format Syndication Atom Publishing Protocol
17. XML Namespace in RSS 2.0 RSS 2.0 doesn’t permit spec changes, but it allows the use of “external module” New modules (i.e., vocabularies) can be introduced using XML Namespace Similar to what’s permitted in RSS 1.0
18. Atom An XML document; defines some useful syndication concepts that are missing RSS 1.0 and RSS 2.0
19. Why Atom 1.0 maybe better than RSS 2.0 RSS 2.0 is probably more widely used than Atom 1.0 However, Atom 1.0 few useful features http://www.intertwingly.net/wiki/pie/Rss20AndAtom10Compared
20. RSS 2.0 Content Encoding RSS 2.0 allows both plain text and escaped HTML (‘&’ ‘&’) But, no way to tell a client that which encoding scheme is currently being used. This makes the client implementation difficult In the open Web, software must implement addition logic to detect the encode scheme.
21. Atom Content Encoding Atom allows the encoding schema to be explicitly labeled Plain text (default) Escaped HTML Well-format XHTML Some other XML vocabulary (not XHTML) Base64 binary content A “pointer” to Web content not included in the feed
22. Content Description Full content vs. Partial content RSS 2.0: Can’t explicitly describe whether the content is “partial” or “full” Only <description/> is available Atom 1.0: Can choose to use <summary/> or <content/> Full content may be “audio” (binary) Summary may be a text translation of the audio
24. How We Use RSS http://www.micropersuasion.com/2006/06/35_ways_you_can.html
25. RSS & Atom in the Social Web Syndication is an important foundation of the Social Web (1) Pushing news and updates to the users (2) Describing Web resources (3) Publishing and editing Web resources
26. Pushing News and Updates Social Networking sites exploit RSS to build user loyalty – i.e., “news update! come back often”. My News Feed Friends’ Mini Feeds Friends’ Profile Updates Friends’ Updated Photos Groups Updates Events Updates and more ….
29. Describing Web Resources Solution: RSS http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_future_of_rss.php
30. Web Resource with Multi-dimensional Properties Resources Relates to a YouTube video (link?) John Smith is in this picture (homepage?) Taken on 2007/12/03 @ 10:00PM Johnny is the photographer (homepage?) Relates to a family trip (trip’s homepage?) Location Piccadilly Square (latitude/longitude?)
31. Some Examples Many extensions of feed syndication GeoRSS – adds geo-location information OpenSearch – adds Web search support Google Base – adds resource property description
33. OpenSearch OpenSearch is a specification for discovering search services and describing search and search results. Spec. adds extensions to RSS and Atom Search results are described in a syndication document with meta-data about query paging. http://www.opensearch.org
37. GBase’s Attributes Extends the Atom spec, GBase defines additional terms for describe GBase Items Universal Attributes These applies to all things in GBase Item Type specific attributes These applies to a specific kind of GBase items
44. What can you do with AtomPub? Ask the server for a list of available resources. Collections “folders” or “directories” Entries e.g. blogs or web pages Request the server to perform CRUD ops
47. Why AtomPub is interesting Many Web 2.0 sites now implement AtomPub Google GData API WordPress GData is the core API for interacting with Google services: Google Apps, Goolge Base, Blogger, Google Calendar, Google Contact, Google Notebook, Picasa Web Albums, YouTube
48. Summary We’ve come along way in creating syndication formats for the Web, from Pointcast to RSS, from RSS 0.90 to RSS 2.0, and then Atom 1.0. Syndications continue to play important role in the Social Web – for pushing updates to the users, and for describing, publishing and editing web resources.
49. AtomPub and beyond The Web is a computing platform We need protocols like the AtomPub that allows resources to be created and updated via HTTP and XML.