Curiouser and Curiouser!

Curiouser and Curiouser! on rss-2-0 http://matt.blogs.it/ RSS feed for topic rss-2-0 Copyright 2006 Matt Mower Squib/0.1 self@mattmower.com self@mattmower.com en-gb Trackbacks data in RSS? Sat, 14 Jun 2003 12:35:08 +0100 I'd like an easy way to ping a trackbackable item when I post in Radio.  It seems to me that the easiest way to achieve this would be to have the trackback id embedded in the RSS item (much like the GUID is).  This would allow me to pre-load the URL to ping when posting a commentary on an item. Has someone already come up with an extension for doing this? Update My thanks to <A href="http://philringnalda.com/">Phil Ringnalda</A> who sent me the link to the <A href="http://madskills.com/public/xml/rss/module/trackback/">trackback module</A> for RSS which provides a way to associate the trackback ping url with an item in a feed.  Exactly what I was looking for!  However when I checked my copy of MovableType I notice that the module is not used by either the 1.0 or 2.0 templates (at least as of 2.63). What gives? http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001487.html The petunia's had it Tue, 24 Jun 2003 07:25:13 +0100 <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <A href="http://www.myelin.co.nz/post/2003/6/24/#200306241">Replacing RSS?</A>. It looks like various people are <A href="http://intertwingly.net/wiki/pie/RoadMap">working on a replacement for RSS</A>, the ubiquitous <A href="http://backend.userland.com/rss">weblog syndication format</A>. I look at this and think one thing:    why? Why do you need to replace RSS? Why do all blogging tools and aggregators need a new format? Do they really need it, or can you do it with namespaced additions to the RSS 2 spec? <Sigh> <A title="Click here to comment on this post." href="http://www.myelin.co.nz/phil/pss/comments.php?u=2&p=200306241&link=http://www.myelin.co.nz/post/2003/6/24/#200306241">Comment</A> [<A href="http://www.myelin.co.nz/post/">Second p0st</A>]</BLOCKQUOTE> Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was "Oh no, not again."  Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the universe than we do now. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001504.html RSS 2.0 has a new home Fri, 18 Jul 2003 19:13:37 +0100 <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <A href="http://scriptingnews.userland.com/backissues/2003/07/18#rss20News">RSS 2.0 News</A>. There's lots of movement with RSS to <A href="http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/announceRss2">announce</A> today. <A href="http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss"><IMG height=85 hspace=15 src="http://radio.weblogs.com/0001015/images/2002/09/08/flowers.gif" width=65 align=right vspace=5 border=0></A>1. On Tuesday, July 15, UserLand Software transferred its copyright in the RSS 2.0 spec to Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. This addresses one of the major concerns about RSS 2.0, that it was published by one of the competitors in the RSS application space. That no longer is true. 2. <A href="http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss">The spec</A> is licensed under terms that allow it to be customized, excerpted and republished, using the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike <A href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/1.0/">license</A>. So Berkman is basically acting as a distributor for the technology. We hope that this will inspire new profiles that extend RSS so it can meet the needs of diverse applications. 3. Since UserLand specifically disclaimed ownership of the format that the specification describes, no transfer took place on the format itself. 4. An independent <A href="http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/advisoryBoard">advisory board</A> has been formed to promote the wider use of RSS, to maintain the spec according to the roadmap, and to remove one of the major objections, that only UserLand could answer questions about RSS. The three-member board votes, the majority rules. The three board members are Brent Simmons, Jon Udell and Dave Winer. 5. The first <A href="http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/advisoryBoard#whatsTheFirstTaskForTheBoard">task</A> for the advisory board is to carefully review the RSS 2.0 specification in its new context. Quite a few documents <A href="http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rssChangeNotes">moved</A>, there probably are broken links. Help from the community is requested. 6. A place for <A href="http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/2003/07/18#a24">comments</A>, questions and suggestions. A caveat to people concerned about edits, this section will certainly be edited over the next few hours. [<A href="http://www.scripting.com/">Scripting News</A>]</BLOCKQUOTE> http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001520.html AOL Journal does RSS 2.0 Fri, 18 Jul 2003 19:21:35 +0100 <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <A href="http://www.myelin.co.nz/post/2003/7/18/#200307181">RSS 2.0, generated by AOL Journal 1.0</A>. It looks like <A href="http://journals.aol.com/zvx/soundandfury/rss.xml">AOL is using RSS 2.0</A>. They're generating <CODE>link rel</CODE> lines too: <CODE><link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="http://journals.aol.com/zvx/soundandfury/rss.xml"></CODE> <A title="Click here to comment on this post." href="http://www.myelin.co.nz/phil/pss/comments.php?u=2&p=200307181&link=http://www.myelin.co.nz/post/2003/7/18/#200307181">Comment</A> [<A href="http://www.myelin.co.nz/post/">Second p0st</A>]</BLOCKQUOTE> Interesting. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001522.html When aggregators attack Mon, 18 Aug 2003 14:28:23 +0100 <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <A href="http://scriptingnews.userland.com/2003/08/18#wiredOnAggregators">Comments here</A> on Wired's <A href="http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,60053,00.html">article</A> on news aggregators. [<A href="http://www.scripting.com/">Scripting News</A>]</BLOCKQUOTE> The title of the article  Aggregators Attack Info Overload  suggested to me a slightly more in depth piece looking at the value of using RSS and aggregators to communicate and share.  In this, I think it fell short. I'm also disappointed because it meant that <A href="http://w4.evectors.it/">K-Collector</A> didn't get a mention.  We may be the new kid on the block but with RSS+ENT I think we're doing something really interesting in this space. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001554.html K-Collector as an RSS catalogue Tue, 14 Oct 2003 10:58:05 +0100 <div style="margin-left: 40px;"><a href="http://www.istori.com/log/archives/00000310.html">RSS Feed Catalogs</a>. Wouldn't it be cool if sites that published lots of RSS feeds could also publish a catalog of those feeds ... [<a href="http://www.istori.com/log/">istori/log</a>] </div> We're publishing several hundred topical feeds (in RSS2.0 + <a href="http://matt.blogs.it/specs/ENT/1.0/">ENT</a> format) from <a href="http://w4.evectors.it/">K-Collector</a>.  You can navigate the feed structure quite easily.  Start at the <a href="http://w4.evectors.it/">top-level</a> and select a category such as <a href="http://k-collector.evectors.it/itentdirectory/wwwwclassification?dir=142">Who</a> then browse the available topics under that category.  Pick one like <a href="http://k-collector.evectors.it/itentdirectory/wwwwtopic?dir=361">Don Park</a> or <a href="http://k-collector.evectors.it/itentdirectory/wwwwtopic?dir=468">Phil Wolff</a> and then add the <a href="http://k-collector.evectors.it/itentdirectory/rss2?dir=361">XML feed</a> to your aggregator to read posts concerning that person. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001674.html Say no to Plaxo (fix the real problem) Mon, 03 Nov 2003 10:04:39 +0000 This Plaxo thing is insidious. I just got an email from someone I spoke to a while ago which says "I'm just updating my address details, please can you confirm or correct what I have?"  The email is automatically generated by Plaxo and shows a neat card that indicates this guy doesn't really have have my details.  So I think "Okay."  And trott off using the link provided to go update them. But as I'm there I'm thinking "hey... if I change my details again, i've got this work to do again.  And maybe for each person who keeps my details in Plaxo."  He's put the burden of updating my details on to me.  Fine for him, not fine for me.  Of course Plaxo offer the carrot "If you get Plaxo too then you won't have to do this.  We'll do it for you." Of course then I'm signed up for the Plaxo service.  They'll want something in return (and I still have no solution for the other people who will not be using Plaxo).  Some people might call this clever marketing, but I think it's a bit like being blackmailed and I don't like it. For my money  <a href="http://www.kunekt.com/nie/index.php">Kunekt</a> have (or had, I'm not sure if the service is still supported) a better approach.  I keep my details on their server and they provide an RSS feed that can be used to be notified when I make changes.  Two key differences: <ol> <li>The architecture is open, it's just RSS.</li> <li>It doesn't bother you unless you want to use it (and even then it doesn't bother you).</li> </ol> For me, no. 2 is not just an option. If the authors of mail & PIM clients got their acts together even the Kunekt style service wouldn't be needed.  I don't need them to host my contact details.  I already do that in Outlook.  If Outlook could generate & consume contact details feeds that would be all I would need.  Oh happy day! (Of course Plaxo could still play if they would be able to subscribe to my contact details feed.  Of course, whether there is still a need for Plaxo in such a world...) http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001696.html ETCon'04 - We won't be there Fri, 16 Jan 2004 08:57:46 +0000 <blockquote><a href="http://socialsoftware.weblogsinc.com/entry/4114434910144189/">ETECH is coming up....</a>. <A href="http://socialsoftware.weblogsinc.com/entry/4114434910144189/">O'Reilly's Emerging Technology Conference...</A>. <H2>OReillys Emerging Technology Conference</H2> <H3>Posted Jan 15, 2004, 6:54 PM ET by Judith Meskill</H3><IMG src="http://conferences.oreillynet.com/images/et2004/etcon_butterfly.gif" align=right> <A href="http://conferences.oreillynet.com/etech/">OReillys Emerging Technology Conference</A> taking place at the Westin Horton Plaza, San Diego, CA, Feb. 9-12, 2004 will have a <A href="http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/28/track_social.html">Social Software track</A>. This promises to be an excellent event with a broad spectrum of notable speakers that includes (but is certainly not limited to): <A href="http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2004/view/e_spkr/1686">Helen Greiner</A> - iRobot Corp., <A href="http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2004/view/e_spkr/521">Cory Doctorow</A> - EFF, <A href="http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2004/view/e_spkr/1730">Lili Cheng</A> - Microsoft Research, <A href="http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2004/view/e_spkr/1727">Gilman Louie</A> - In-Q-Tel, <A href="http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2004/view/e_spkr/363">David Sifry</A> - Technorati, <A href="http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2004/view/e_spkr/1703">Joichi Ito</A> - Neoteny, <A href="http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2004/view/e_spkr/1669">Elizabeth Lawley</A> - Rochester Institute of Technology, and, of course, <A href="http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2004/view/e_spkr/416">Tim OReilly</A> - OReilly & Associates. [<A href="http://socialsoftware.weblogsinc.com/">The Social Software Weblog</A>] This is the key event of the year.  We're gonna party like is USED to be 1999. I'll be there - sponsored by <A href="http://laszlosystems.com">Laszlo Systems</A> and I'll be giving a :05 minute talk on FOAF and the PeopleAggregator. But clearly the most exciting event will be the field trip to TJ and the House of Mole.  Something not to be missed. [<a href="http://blogs.it/0100198/">Marc's Voice</a>]</blockquote> Anyone out there want to sponsor three Europeans with a kick-ass new RSS based collaborative knowledge organisation tool to go to ET'04? http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001813.html Licensed to aggregate Sat, 07 Feb 2004 23:41:47 +0000 I have been encouraged to think about how copyright content works with RSS. For example I publish my weblog under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/">Creative Commons</a> license however you couldn't tell that from my <a href="http://matt.blogs.it/rss.xml">RSS feed</a>. Does that mean that my feed is not under a CC license? I don't, but I guess that it's confusing at best. What should an application reading my feed and not my blog do? What rules should it apply? I didn't find any solutions to this question searching Google just now so I've started thinking of one myself. Obviously if anyone knows of solution already in use I'd be grateful to hear about it. My first attempt at a solution is to propose a simple new RSS 2.0 extension for Licensing. This extension would add just one new element <code><license></code> which can be applied at both <code><channel></code> and <code><item></code> level. Using such a mechanism a license can be applied to the feed and overriden for specific items if required (although this would require more control in the editing environment). For example one might apply a <a href="http://www.primarilypublicdomain.org/">Primarily Public Domain</a> license to their feed, but override this on a specific item for which they wished to retain the copyright. The next question is what the content of such an element should be. Creative commons licenses have a useful URL which it would be helpful to include. Other (or future) types of license may also have a similar arrangement. Copyright notices on the other hand do not generally have an addressable resource. Therefore I propose the use of an optional <code>src</code> attribute which can point at any addressable resource related to the license. Since copyright is (as far as I understand it) a binary concept I propose another attribute, <code>copyright</code> which has a default value of <code>true</code>. To remove the copyright the attribute should be specified with a value of <code>false</code>. The content of the element then can be an arbitrary string. A copyright notice in the case of a copyright work, or some other useful descriptive string. Some examples: <ul><li><code><license>Copyright (c) 2004 Matt Mower</license></code></li> <li><code><license copyright="false" src="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd-nc/1.0">Creative Commons - By Attribution, Non-Commerical, No Derivative works</license></code></li> </ul> Any takers? http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001856.html Enhancing Radio's aggregator Wed, 25 Feb 2004 21:49:25 +0000 <blockquote><a href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0104487/outlines/radio/enhancedAggregator.html">Introducing the enhancedAggregator</a>. <a href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0104487/images/my/aggregator.png" target="_blank" title="view hires"><img src="http://radio.weblogs.com/0104487/images/my/aggregatorLR.gif" alt="aggregator topics" align="right" border="0"></a>I've recently spent some time investigating Radio's aggregator code, looking for an easy way to support additional RSS modules in general, and ENT 1.0 topics in particular. The <a href="http://updates.prec-it.com/download/enhancedAggregator.root" title="click to download">enhancedAggregator tool</a> is the -provisional- result of this investigation. It comes with full <a href="http://matt.blogs.it/specs/ENT/1.0/" target="_blank">ENT 1.0 topics</a> support for Radio's aggregator, and skeletons for aggregating <a href="http://www.intertwingly.net/wiki/pie/FrontPage" target="_blank">Atom 0.3 feeds</a> and <a href="http://www.esfstandard.org/" target="_blank">ESF 1.0 events</a> for RSS 2.0. I'd like the enhancedAggregator to become a community driven project, allowing Frontier/Radio developers to easily test aggregation of new syndication formats and extensions, without mobilizing Userland scarse resources. So I've added some intal/uninstal/update/prefs ancillary functions to the tool, and provided <a href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0104487/outlines/radio/enhancedAggregator.html" target="_blank">guidelines</a> for updating the current drivers and adding new ones, with pointers to the available online documentation. I hope <a href="http://matt.blogs.it/" target="_blank">Matt</a> will copy the <a href="http://matt.blogs.it/specs/ENT/1.0/" target="_blank">ENT</a> module driver and paste it into the <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/k-collector-support/" target="_blank">k-collector</a> client for Radio, and <a href="http://paolo.evectors.it/2004/02/24.html#a2062" target="_blank">Paolo</a>'s eVector crew will build upon the <a href="http://www.esfstandard.org/" target="_blank">ESF</a> module driver skeleton, copying the result to their new tool when it's stable enough. [<a href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0104487/">s l a m</a>]</blockquote> Marc's doing sterling work. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001921.html We built a better mousetrap, where are the mice? Sat, 08 May 2004 22:53:24 +0100 <blockquote><a href="http://matt.blogs.it/specs/ENT/1.0/">Wouldn't it be cool?</a>. Wourldn't it be cool if otehr people started parsing the ENT tags embedded in this post? That way if I talked about FOAF - for instance - someone like danbri could scarf JUST the FOAF posts and do anything he wanted with them! This would create an incredible two-way kind of capability because systems could then communictae back to me based upon what I said. I know I know -it's RSS2.0 but that becomes a really nice gateway to a world that has 75% market share of feeds(maybe even more.) [<a href="http://blogs.it/0100198/">Marc's Voice</a>] </blockquote> I think it would be pretty cool -- I've been hoping other would start grokking this for a while now.  Yes it's RSS2.0, yes it's not perfect, but it's here, now and I think that by the 80/20 rule it's good enough.  If there's anything we can do to help get ENT support included in other applications please let us know and we will do our best to help. I'd also like to see applications start using the <a href="http://matt.blogs.it/specs/SGUID/1.0/">SGUID</a> information that Paolo and I have had in our feeds for about the same length of time as we've been doing ENT.   Using SGUID one post in an RSS feed can refer directly to the permalink of the post it is quoting from.  Standard RSS2.0 only allows you to refer to the feed.  So for example, tags like: <blockquote><sguid:sourceRef>http://www.theobviousblog.net/blog/archives/000506.html</sguid:sourceRef> </blockquote> should allow a clever aggregator to thread posts. An aggregator that did topics and sguid-based threading, that would be nice... http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002208.html When is a calendar not a calendar? Wed, 18 Aug 2004 07:03:04 +0100 <blockquote>Here's an example <a href="http://www.rsscalendar.com/rss/feed.asp?t=m&k=19b1b73d63d4c9ea79f8ca57e9d67095">feed</a> from <a href="http://www.rsscalendar.com/rss/">RSSCalendar</a>. Looks pretty good. [<a href="http://www.scripting.com/">Scripting News</a>] </blockquote> I'm confused. Where is the metadata? http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002455.html