Web SyndicationFebruary, 2006 Web Syndication: Building A Custom News Page Presented to The Columbus Computer Society February, 2006

Web SyndicationFebruary, 2006 Introducing Syndication A New Way to Use the Web Content Developers Publish –News –Blogs –Many other sources Consumers Subscribe –Via clients –Via Web sites

Web SyndicationFebruary, 2006 What Can Syndication Do For Me? For Publishers –Share your content –Increase your readership For Consumers –Create a custom news page –Browse your favorite sites all in one place –Save time

Web SyndicationFebruary, 2006 How Does Syndication Work? Publishers place a file on their Web site This file contains content to be published The file is encoded in RSS (or ATOM) format RSS files are often generated by a program RSS files (also known as Feeds) are often designated by icons like these:

Web SyndicationFebruary, 2006 How Does Syndication Work? Consumers access feeds via an aggregator The aggregator can be a program… –FeedDemon –FireFox –Pluck Or it can be a Web site… –My Yahoo –BlogLines

Web SyndicationFebruary, 2006 Adding Feeds Consumers add feeds in one of three ways: –Inside an aggregator client or Web site –Clicking an aggregator-specific link on a Web site –Manually copying a feed link from a Web site and pasting it into an aggregator client or Web site

Web SyndicationFebruary, 2006 Getting Started with My Yahoo For this presentation, we will use My Yahoo to demonstrate Web syndication My Yahoo is a Web-based aggregator A Yahoo account is required Advantages of My Yahoo –No software to load –Available anywhere there is Web access –Transparently supports all RSS/ATOM versions

Web SyndicationFebruary, 2006 Getting Started with My Yahoo My Yahoo provides a place to bring together current information from many sources

Web SyndicationFebruary, 2006 Getting Started with My Yahoo With My Yahoo, you can choose your news. For example: –National headlines from CNN –Local news from the Dispatch –Sports from ESPN –Computer News from C-Net –Weather from Weather.com –Geek news from SlashDot

Web SyndicationFebruary, 2006 Getting Started with My Yahoo The first step is to create a Yahoo account (unless you already have one) The next step is to create a My Yahoo page

Web SyndicationFebruary, 2006 Getting Started with My Yahoo After a My Yahoo page is created, the next step is to add content.

Web SyndicationFebruary, 2006 Adding Content There are many sources for RSS feeds –Favorite Web sites that support RSS –Blogs –My Yahoo –BlogLines Directory –Eventful.com for events –Feedster Search –BlogPulse

Web SyndicationFebruary, 2006 Demonstration

Web SyndicationFebruary, 2006 Questions & Discussion

Web SyndicationFebruary, 2006 Web Syndication: Building A Custom News Page Presented to The Columbus Computer Society February, 2006