Re: Evangelizing RSS

["Rael Dornfest" <rael@oreilly.com>]

Howdy,

Pino Calzo wrote:

> >> Agreed. So how do we get the news outlets, who already syndicate via
> >> Moreover, to add the XML button to their sites. Can I suggest a
campaign
>
> >Just to be clear, these sites are not actually creating syndicated feeds
> >themselves at all, but are rather screen-scraped by Moreover and those
> >scrapings turned into RSS.  They don't have to do a thing.  Getting them
to
> >produce their own home-grown RSS files is something else entirely.
>
> true for most of us. Also on NewsIsFree we have ca. 400 sites where we
parse
> the HTML and convert that into RSS and other XML formats. The
> difference we do is, that we try to include also the link descriptions
> where available (instead of a "link-only").

This is the single biggest bit of feeback I receive regarding Meerkat's[1]
use of Moreover[2] feeds... sometimes there just not enough tofu (read:
meat) in the title to inform the to click or not to click decision.  Then
again, in strolling through the Moreover stories just a moment ago, I didn't
find this to be so; about the only one that left me flying blind was:

"Telecom firm lures venture capital"
http://c.moreover.com/click/here.pl?r15565605

> >> to email all your favourite news sources suggesting they make public an
> >> RSS feed?
> >I tended to do this for quite some time (still do on occasion), but
didn't
> >get much of a response.  For efficacy, this should be a larger-scale
> >effort -- of what form, I'm not sure.
>
> I already thought about approaching the big CMS system with it.
> Most sites use on of the big CMS systems around (Vignette, Obtree C3
> etc.). I believe the "export to RSS" should be a function within these
> tools - most content sites don't even think about customizing their
> CMS-Systems so far..

There is such a vast amount of data trapped in CMS systems that its owners
wouldn't mind sharing a) if they thought it was worthwhile (eg. would grab a
few more _targeted_ audience), and b) if they knew how incredibly simple it
could be to create an XML view of their data.

Many of the Open Source solutions do indeed support RSS output right out of
the box.  I worked with the folks at Slashcode[3] to beef up their RSS
support[4] by updating and making use of all the Perl XML::RSS module[5] has
to offer.  Squishdot[6], a module for Zope[7] similarly has RSS support.
These are just a couple of examples of just how simply and quickly RSS can
be made us of by CMSs.

That said, of course I realise this assumes you know what you're doing
programmatically and can extend your CMS.  This is often far beyond what
folks know how / have the time to do.  So what to do?  If you have the time,
know-how, and inclination, offer to help your favourite news sources.  I've
taken a few folks' PHP, Perl, and Python in hand, providing the bits and
pieces necessary.

Rael

[1] http://meerkat.oreillynet.com
[2] http://www.moreover.com
[3] http://slashcode.com/
[4] http://slashcode.com/search.pl?query=rss
[5] http://search.cpan.org/search?dist=XML-RSS
[6] http://www.squishdot.org
[7] http://www.zope.org