RSS is sprouting all over the Web, connecting weblogs and providing news feeds. Originally developed by Netscape in 1999, RSS (which can stand for RDF Site Summary, Rich Site Summary, or Really Simple Syndication) is an XML-based format that allows web developers to describe and syndicate web site content. Using RSS files allows developers to create a data feed that supplies headlines, links, and article summaries from a web site. Other sites can then incorporate them into their pages automatically. Although RSS is in widespread use, people struggle with its confusing and sometimes conflicting documentation and versions. Content Syndication with RSS is the first book to provide a comprehensive reference to the specifications and the tools that make syndication possible. Content Syndication with RSS offers webloggers, developers, and the programmers who support them a thorough explanation of syndication in general and RSS in particular. Written for web developers who want to offer XML-based feeds of their content, as well as developers who want to use the content that other people are syndicating, the book explores and explains metadata interpretation, different forms of content syndication, and the increasing use of web services in this field. This concise volume begins with an introduction to content syndication on the Internet: its purpose, limitations, and traditions, and answers the question of why would you consider "giving your content away" like this? Next, the book delves into the architecture of content syndication with an overview of the entire system, from content author to end user on another site. You'll follow the flow of data: content, referral data, publish-and-subscribe calls, with a detailed look at the protocols and standards possible at each step. Topics covered in the book include:

• Creating XML syndication feeds with RSS 0.9x and 2.0

• Beyond headlines: creating richer feeds with RSS 1.0 and RDF metadata

• Using feeds to enrich a site or find information

• Publish and subscribe: intelligent updating

• News aggregators, such as Meerkat, Syndic8, and Newsisfree, and their web services

• Alternative industry-centric standards

If you're interested in producing your own RSS feed, this step-by-step guide to implementation is the book you'll want in hand.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 8 Ratings

didn't get me started at all! - 2004-05-03
Reviewer Rating:
I was expecting this book to show me somewhere in the first hundred pages an example of how to create an RSS feed. Instead I got wayyyy too much history, and I couldn't find a "hello, world" example.

I grant that the history is important, and this book will probably fit in well to the cadre of books that emerge on RSS over the next year or two. However, this year, this isn't the book I needed.

A Little Misleading - 2004-09-26
Reviewer Rating:
For the most part, industry standard RSS is a very short list of simple XML elements. Standard RSS Readers only look for those standardized tags to create the display. You can verify that by opening almost any public RSS XML document and just looking at it. RSS is simple enough that you could probably pick it up by just looking at a well formed sample file and reading the short syntax document provided for free by the creators (UserLand Software for RSS 2.0 or the RSS-DEV Working Group for RSS 1.0 - FeedValidator.org has links to the documentation). After reading this title, I am a little confused as to whom target audience is supposed to be.

The first issue I had with the book is the coverage of versions. The author has chosen to write not only about the two current versions (1.0 and 2.0 - two companies, two separate tracks of standardized tags), but the preceding versions for each. I don't buy a Word 2003 book to learn about Word 6. The layout could serve as a reference guide for the tags when you're done, but again, the vendor provided syntax guides are easier to reference. Next, the author makes some assumptions that aren't publicized; you should be really (really) familiar with XML to understand many chapters in the book, and you should also develop in Perl (as there are numerous, lengthy Perl scripts used as demos). I've created many RSS Feeds for both company Intranets as well as Internet sites, and given the simplicity of RSS, I can tell you that you don't need either to create a feed on your own.

The back cover claims the book is a "step-by-step guide to implementation", but it really isn't. The author has written a very nice book on the general history and specs of standardized RSS, but then fills the remaining pages with a general syntax overview of other commonly used RSS XML namespaces (not really demo-ing them), ideas for extending RSS with your own XML namespaces (which is great, but really just produces a customized XML document that industry standard RSS reader's won't know what to do with) , and then transforming other site's RSS Feeds into your own conglomerated XHTML page with various Perl conversion scripts, SOAP tie-ins, etc.

For the percentage of people that already know RSS and are looking to really go into advanced manipulations - this is a great title and I recommend it. For everyone else who just want to quickly learn the very simple syntax, this is a misleading title and I would recommend saving your money and reading the vendor's free syntax guides, or talking a quick on-line course. You'll find RSS easy enough without this book.

Best PRINTED resource about the topic available today - 2004-03-26
Reviewer Rating:
I must underscore the reason why I capitalized the word "PRINTED" in the title of this review. This is indeed the best book about the topic of RSS (RDF Site Summary), which has become increasingly more important since blogs jumped out of tech obscurity to become a mainstream form of web-enabled information dissemination. However, nowadays the topic is too dynamic (there's too much happening these days in the field of RSS) to make Hammersley's book a comprehensive and current enough resource for all matters and purposes.

As a general introductory reading, it's the best book out there. But once you get your feet deep enough in the RSS waters, you need to go online and search for the current APIs, Web Services, News Aggregators and RSS/Blog Directories, which is the area where the book will fall behind the fast growth of this area. Overall, very well structured, even with an appendix on the XML you need to know, in order to be able to deal with RSS.

Good book, but a little wordy - 2004-10-07
Reviewer Rating:
RSS is just XML in a certain format. At its core, it's pretty basic.

The author goes into MUCH detail about the history of the format as well as older (and nowdays rarely used) RSS versions.

It was interesting reading the history, and the details on the format and extentions was great. It really helped me get up to speed on RSS.

I would like to have seen more discussion about what RSS could do though. If I was consulting the author on the 2nd version, I'd have suggested dropping the info about older formats and putting some info in about the new uses of RSS...like iPodder, or the Presidential debate feeds.

If you want to get started quickly, this is a good way to jump in.

One of the few titles on RSS. And it's good, too! - 2004-06-02
Reviewer Rating:
This book really is a must-have (or must-read-once) for anyone interested in RSS syndication technology.

It contains a lot of information on creating RSS feeds and related scripts. Most of the non-RSS code is in Perl, so if you don't use Perl, some of the book might not be handy.

I was disappointed that the book didn't cover much of the user's end of syndication... things like scraping and RSS readers themselves, but that's obviously another book.

This is a really nice title if you're interested in the techie side of RSS, but if you're an end user, there won't be too much here for you aside from the bits of history.

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