Into the blue with RSS - a practical workshop to build cultural feeds - FULL
Jon Pratty, United Kingdom
This workshop is full.
This is a half-day workshop (for tech fans and non-techies alike) on RSS/Geo-RSS and syndicated content distribution - with a keen emphasis on content issues and editorial content.
There's been a lot of feed activity in recent months since the break-out of more consumer-orientated feed tools and widgets – at MW2008 we tried a Twitter feed on the blog homepage – but what else can be done with technologies like this?
During the session we'll appraise (in easy-to-assimilate terms) recent developments in RSS and feed-related technologies, concentrating on practical, usable facilities that are being used – or could be used by – in cultural places like ours.
Once we've examined what's new we'll be doing some practical building and mashing of feeds, but with the intention of making something that might have a real use once the workshop is over. To do this, group working with mixed interest/skill levels will be formed.
Putting together a usable multi-institution US event feed will be explored, using RSS output already live from museums. We'll look at how to build it, then actually put something together live. We'll be looking to make a feed using tools like RSS Mixer and Yahoo Pipes.
Major output from the session is intended to be a publishable feed for a generalized audience, but participants will be encouraged to have a go at making something they'd really like to see personally too.
When that's done we'll see how it works in publishing terms, and how it can then be offered out to everyone else. What do other publishers want? In what form can they use it? We'll spend some time work-shopping views across the table and bringing in new work from outside our comfort zones.
Finally, we'll be blue-skying some thoughts about what we'd love to do, and maybe going away from the session with plans to go forth and create fascinating feeds.
Participants are encouraged to bring a laptop.
Workshop: Cultural RSS Feeds [Morning]
Keywords: syndication, rss, xml, usability, widget, web 2.0, feed
