1. RSS Part One ACE 2004 June 21, 2004

2. What if you...? Offered direct, immediate delivery of fresh content straight to the desktop Provided automatic information channels from other providers right on your website Increased content awareness, distribution, and branding for a very small investment

3. Use RSS

4. What is RSS? Rich Site Summary RDF Site Summary Real Simple Syndication

5. Really, though, what is it? A format for syndicating news and news-like sites RSS can syndicate: –Major news sites (NYTimes)NYTimes –News-oriented community sites (Slashdot)Slashdot –WeblogsWeblogs

6. Well, what does that mean?

7. News (Weblog) page

8. RSS Feed (0.91)

9. Defining a channel Title –Tech, Knowledge, and Community Link –http://www.extension.iastate.edu/mt/dcoates Description –Deb’s Blog

10. News Site

11. RSS Feed

12. Defining an Item Title –Stiles Farm Field Day Set Link –http://agnews.tamu.edu/dailynews/stories/SOIL/May0404b.htmhttp://agnews.tamu.edu/dailynews/stories/SOIL/May0404b.htm Description –THRALL - From crop production to beef cattle, the June 15 Stiles Farm Field Day will feature topics of interest to all segments of the farming and ranching industry

13. What can I do with RSS? Find Information –Aggregators Applications (Feedreader, Sharpreader, RSS Bandit) Web-based (Bloglines) Distribute information –RSS Feeds –Web Services

14. Finding Information Look –Syndicate this site –XML tag Search –Syndic8 –Technorati –Blogstreet Browse

15. What it looks like on the web page

16. ...in the RSS feed

17. ...in an aggregator

18. Distributing Information Content Management Systems Weblogs Create your own

19. What can I do with it?

20. Syndicating Agriculture News with RSS Blair Fannin Texas Agricultural Experiment Station ACE 2004 Lake Tahoe, Nevada

21. Why We Use RSS Distribute News Faster. Bypasses “spam” problem. Journalist or non-media consumer can “subscribe” to our RSS feed and receive updates as fast as 15 minutes each hour.

22. Why We Use RSS RSS helps market our Web site. Often when something is posted to a Web site, nobody knows about it until they visit the site.

23. Why We Use RSS We currently offer one RSS feed. This feed includes every story we post to our http://agnews.tamu.edu Web site.http://agnews.tamu.edu We plan to offer several feeds in the future. Examples: Beef news, Crop and Weather reports, Commodity news.

24. Why We Use RSS RSS feeds can be used to distribute much more than news. You could offer RSS feeds for new Extension publications, announce new educational videos, newsletters, internal communications.

25. Why We Use RSS Bill Gates on Blogging and RSS: “…If you just put information on a Web site, then people don’t know to come visit that Web site, and it’s very painful to keep visiting somebody’s Web site and it never changes.”

26. Journalists Are Using RSS Beef Today Editor Steve Cornett: “It’s like having an encyclopedia in the book case. It’s right there.” Local Newspaper in Bryan-College Station. Pitched them the idea of starting their own RSS feed. Freelance writer in New York. Uses RSS subscriptions for story ideas.

27. RSS Is FREE!! You can hand code your own RSS feed (very time consuming!) or there are Web sites that can do it for you!

28. Texas A&M Agriculture Program RSS Feed http://agnews.tamu.edu/rss.html Actual XML file: http://agnews.tamu.edu/agnews.xml

29. Texas A&M Agriculture Program RSS Feed

35. Editorial RSS will transform the way Internet news and information is distributed in the future. Our society is shifting to a “digital lifestyle.”

36. Editorial Our Texas journalists and non-media consumers are our “customers.” We want to offer them the best, most innovative methods of receiving our news.

37. Editorial “You can’t just keep doing what works one time, because everything around you is changing. To succeed, you have to stay out in front of that change.” Sam Walton “Made In America. My Story.”

38. News Aggregators For the PC: Sharpreader: http://www.sharpreader.comhttp://www.sharpreader.com AmphetaDesk: http://www.disobey.com/amphetadesk/http://www.disobey.com/amphetadesk/ Feedreader: http://www.feedreader.comhttp://www.feedreader.com NewsGator: http://www.newsgator.comhttp://www.newsgator.com Aggie: http://bitworking.org/Aggie.htmlhttp://bitworking.org/Aggie.html

39. News Aggregators For the Mac: NetNewsWire: http://www.ranchero.comhttp://www.ranchero.com

40. Daily Read: Scripting News http://www.scriptingnews.com Dave Winer, considered the father of RSS, is the author of this blog. Useful tips on RSS and other technology news can be found here.

41. Challenges In The Future RSS is here to stay (at least I think so.) Bill Gates on Blogging and RSS: “This is a very interesting thing…”

42. Resources Visit http://cowhand.tamu.edu (Yes, It Has An RSS Feed!) Or E-mail Me: b-fannin@tamu.edu Suggested Reading: “Content Syndication With RSS” by Ben Hammersley