1. + RSS Aggregation and Syndication

2. + Really Simple Syndication (aka, Rich Site Summary) Image source: http://www.commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english

3. + Goals for Class RSS from a user’s perspective Set up feeds in an aggregator RSS from a content creator’s perspective Create an RSS feed, 2 ways: easy and hard By hand Using an automated tool

4. + Users Aggregate Info Web-based aggregator http://www.bloglines.com http://www.google.com/reader Your web browser (extensions) Desktop aggregator software Feedreader, NetNewsWire Other websites i.e., our ISTC 605 blog

5. + Where to Find Feeds? Feed directories http://www.feedage.com/ http://www.syndic8.com Most news/information oriented sites Newspapers Blogs Image source: http://www.twelvehorses.com

6. + Activity – Google Reader Log into Google Use the “Add a subscription” button to add RSS feeds for: Our ISTC 605 Diigo group Our ISTC 605 blog Any other websites you visit frequently (hint: look for the orange RSS logo)

7. + Creating RSS feeds for your website

8. + Content Providers Syndicate Info RSS documents are written in XML Designed with data transport in mind Primarily a structure to describe information

9. + RSS documents use specific XML elements XML declaration RSS version declaration Channel Title Link Description

10. + We’ve got the content… now we want to make it available to our readers via RSS!

11. + The Hard Way By hand… 1. Copy the sample RSS document from http://www.w3schools.com/rss/rss_syntax.asp http://www.w3schools.com/rss/rss_syntax.asp 2. Paste into a plain text document (Notepad ) 3. Save into your webresource folder as myrssfeed.xml 4. Customize the links and content 5. Upload to the webresource folder on the WWW of your H drive 6. Reset Tiger server permissions: http://webdisk.towson.edu

12. + The Hard Way Your feed’s URL is: http://tiger.towson.edu/~yourname/myrssfeed.xml Final steps… 1. Validate your feed http://www.feedvalidator.org 2. Add an RSS logo image to your homepage Download an image from Google Images Save to your web folder 3. Link the RSS logo to your RSS feed 4. Reset Tiger server permissions: http://webdisk.towson.edu

13. + Pro and Con Pro: ultimate control over your content and how it looks Con: RSS document (myfeed.xml) is separate from your HTML pages RSS Feed doesn’t automatically update when you add new content to the website! time consuming to update feed by hand

14. + The Easy Way HTML to RSS conversion tools 1. Use this website to create an RSS feed http://www.feedage.com/html2rss/ http://www.feedage.com/html2rss/ 2. Copy the URL for the feed created by the site 3. Back on your webpage, replace your hand-made RSS URL with the RSS feed URL generated by Feedage

15. + Pro and Con Pro: RSS Feed automatically updates when you add new content to the website! Con: don’t have total control over your content and how it looks