Re: [syndication] Question: discovering sources

[Ian Davis <ian@calaba.com>]

Hi,

On Thursday, October 12, 2000, 8:36:35 PM, Tristan wrote:

> First of all, XML tree does more than XML. It also lists WAP feeds which,
> as far as I know, are NOT XML compliant. That greatly bothered me as there 
> is no great way to search only on RSS or RDF feeds.

xmlTree only lists xml documents. These include RSS, scriptingNews,
RDF, NewsML, WDDX and WML among many others. WML is the markup
language used by WAP devices and is fully compliant XML. You might be
confusing it with HDML which isn't XML at all.

We also hope that, despite comments to the contrary, xmlTree is a
completely open directory that allows you to access any of the content
listed in a variety of ways. You can easily find content in any format
by just selecting the appropriate schema type. For example, to see a
categorised listing of all the RSS 0.91 feeds use this link:

http://www.xmltree.com/xml/rootSchema.xml?keys=&schema=11

and for RSS 0.90:

http://www.xmltree.com/xml/rootSchema.xml?schema=12

> The other reason behind this is that I'm trying to establish the state of
> RSS. All of us on this list are aware that there are quite a few RSS feeds 
> out there but the basic question is how many of the top sites out there 
> actually do RSS. And how does it break down (are people adopting 1.0? Are 
> they sticking with .91? Are they going with their own version?)

For more information on what is out there, have a look at my RSS
surveys:

http://www.topica.com/lists/alchemy/read/message.html?mid=1700563039
http://www.egroups.com/message/syndication/330

I'm planning to do another one this month.

> Based on what I've found, it seems that there is some need on our part to 
> evangelize RSS. Few old media sites are actually doing RSS feeds and fewer 
> are publicizing them. For RSS to succeed, the process needs to be open to 
> all and I appreciate the work done by My.userland and XMLtree in terms of 
> offering directories.
This was some of the rationale behind creating RSSMaker
(http://InternetAlchemy.org/rss). I thought that by demonstrating
the levels of traffic flow to those sites that they would take it upon
themselves to create their own RSS channels. However, that still
hasn't happened, except in one case (Wired - and I don't claim any
credit for that one)


> Expanding beyond RSS, I am looking at XML sourcing on the web. In order to 
> fully understand the spread of XML, we need to know where and where it's 
> going. Don't you find it interesting that everyone is talking about a 
> semantic web (from Tim Berners-Lee to the RDF crowd) but it seems that XML 
> sources are not as widely available as HTML ones (I can use any search 
> engine to find an HTML document on the web. I have yet to find a search 
> engine that does the same for XML).
Well you can search xmlTree :) Or if you just want to search WML try
wapaw.com. For general purpose xml search engines have a look at
goxml.com. There are a number of others. The main obstacle to building
a general xml search engine is that most public xml is in the form of
documents with no standard way of linking (xlink aside). In fact it
makes little sense to link some types of documents together.


> My fear is that XML is increasingly becoming about the closing up of the 
> web (hide the sources and lock out the others) instead of the kind of 
> opened and interlinked web that was promised.
I sincerely hope that isn't where it's going.

Ian