Content Syndication with RSS

Chapter 2. Content-Syndication Architecture

Talent is always conscious of its own abundance, and does not object to sharing.

—Alexander Solzhenitsyn

In this chapter, we’ll look at how RSS feeds are structured: both the feed itself and the way RSS fits into the whole web publishing picture. First, let’s look at the structure of publishing on the Web.

Information Flow and Other Metaphors

Publishing on the Web can be visualized as a flow of information. Ultimately, information goes from the brain of the writer to the brain of the reader, but we don’t want to concern ourselves with the biological bits right now. Let’s assume that whatever content you have created is safely digitized and located on a computer.

The job now is to serve this file to your readers. If you have written your content directly in HTML and uploaded it into the correct directory on your server, this step is already done.

Most people, however, rely on some form of Content Management System (CMS). The definition of CMS is quite fluid. Software vendors will say that a real CMS must be a multithousand-dollar application running on expensive hardware, others will point to free web-based weblogging services such as Blogger, and still others will say that a CMS is anything that takes raw content and does something with it to present it to the public — this can include plain human intervention with a text editor and some patience.

Whichever camp you fall into, your CMS will most likely have the structure shown in Figure ...