rss: really simple syndication a publisher’s perspective howard ratner niso metadata conference 20...
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RSS: Really Simple Syndication A Publisher’s Perspective
Howard RatnerNISO Metadata Conference
20 May 2004
Overview
Usage Drivers
RSS
Urchin
Active Usage Drivers
Active inbound linking CrossRef, PubMed, Web of Science, ChemPort
Email alerts ToC, subject specific, special offers Advance Online Publication Press Releases / Press Site
Advertising Banner, skyscraper, mini online ads
Passive Usage Drivers
Passive Inbound linking DOIs & urls in print OAI-PMH (Open Archives Initiative) Searching
Metadata and full text searches STM specific and general searches
RSS feeds
Place hooks to the content in the places where a user is most likely to find it in their
daily workflow.
Overview
Usage Drivers
RSS
Urchin
What is RSS?
A ‘machine-readable web page’
A lightweight XML format for syndicating news titles, links and descriptions
Originally developed by Netscape, more recently adopted by bloggers
Consumed by: Users with desktop readers Webmasters who want to embed titles from
other sites in their own pages News aggregators
Different versions of RSS
0.9
0.91 0.92 2.0 “Atom”
1.0
Simple: Plain XML
Extensible: RDF/XML
= most popular formats
Example of an RSS feed
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?><!DOCTYPE rss SYSTEM "http://www.bbc.co.uk/syndication/feeds/news/rss-0.91.dtd"><rss version="0.91"> <channel> <title>BBC News | News Front Page | UK Edition</title> <link>http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/click/rss/0.91/public/-/1/hi/default.stm</link> <description>Updated every minute of every day</description> <language>en-gb</language> <lastBuildDate>Tue, 16 Sep 03 09:21:32 GMT</lastBuildDate> <copyright>Copyright: (C) British Broadcasting Corporation, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/services/copyright/html/default.stm</copyright> <docs>http://www.bbc.co.uk/syndication/</docs> <image> <title>BBC News</title> <url>http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/bbc_news_120x60.gif</url> <link>http://news.bbc.co.uk</link> </image> <item> <title>Hutton witnesses face tough questions</title> <description>Witnesses at the inquiry into Dr David Kelly's death will face cross-examination, a day after a BBC boss and a spy chief gave evidence.</description> <link>http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/click/rss/0.91/public/-/1/hi/uk_politics/3111926.stm</link> </item> <item> <title>Deadly blast ends Japan siege</title> <description>At least three people are killed in an explosion in an office where a disgruntled worker had taken hostages.</description>
…
Example of an RSS feed
Current NPG RSS Feeds
Nature Science Update Nature Materials Update Nature Signaling Update NatureJobs editorial NatureJobs jobs British Dental Journal TOC Other TOCs coming soon…
All in RSS 1.0 format
RSS Highlights
Publishers: Sends more people to your content Greater range of potential uses than email
embedding in third-party web pages
Readers: Allows greater control than email Can be easily aggregated and filtered to create
custom feeds
Usage Drivers
RSS
Urchin
Overview
Urchin
A software framework for aggregating, filtering and displaying information from RSS news feeds
Conceived and designed by NPG New Technology, funded by JISC
Core code released as open source and available from: http://urchin.sourceforge.net/ (v0.9)
Urchin architecture
Urchin database
General news feeds (BBC, NYT,
Yahoo!, …)
Scientific news feeds (NPG,
Science Daily, Medscape, …)
Local NPG content and databases
Information ‘scraped’ from selected web
pages
‘Breaking news’ alerts
Keyword-specific RSS feeds
Personalised news pages
Subject-specific news
General Science home page
Filtered General Science home page
Ways to filter Urchin output
Boolean keyword queries: Easy and intuitive but limited to preset fields
Full RDF querying: More involved but allows filtering on any metadata
Breaking news (experimental): Automatic identification of recently popular phrases
AGGREGATE bbc Microsoft AND (security OR virus OR worm)
Select ?item From ?item->nj:advertises{?job} Where ?job->nj:city = 'Cambridge'
Select ?article From ?article->dc:creator{?author}, Where ?item->dc:creator{?author} And $item->rss:link =
'http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/427005a'
Recommendations
Maximize inbound links Spread linking hooks as wide as practical
and as targeted as possible Partner with A&I services Partner with Search Engines Explore new technologies Experiment with new business models
Thank you!Contact information:
Howard [email protected]
www.nature.com
Good Resource: RSS: A Primer for Publishers & Content Providers
by M Moffattwww.eeul.ac.uk/rss_primer