Web 2.0: The Potential Of RSS And Location Based Services

1. http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/meetings/edinburgh-2006-09/http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/meetings/edinburgh-2006-09/ Web 2.0: The Potential Of RSS And Location Based Services • Aims: • Build on recent Scottish-web-people and JISC meetings • Explore options for enhancing use of RSS • Advice to JISC & JISC Services • Discuss institutional perspective • Start discussions on simple location-based services Email B.Kelly@ukoln.ac.uk Brian Kelly UKOLN University of Bath Bath Resources bookmarked using 'edinburgh-2006-09' tag UKOLN is supported by: This work is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 licence (but note caveat)

2. Contents • This brief talk (14 slides) will cover: • RSS: • News feeds  Syndication • Navigation  Maximising impact • Location-Based Services • Google Maps mashups • Location-based metadata (and microformats) • Deployment Challenges • Should we do it? • What are the barriers? • Where to from here? Generaldiscussion

3. RSS RSS • RSS: • Killer lightweight format • Initially used to allow news to be embedded in others Web sites • Now used for general syndication of content • Use in Blogs helped in take-up • Lots of ways of using RSS, creating RSS, RSS tools, etc. See An Introduction To RSS And News FeedsQA Focus briefing document no. 78

4. Desktop alerting RSS tool (Google Desktop) JISC Services RSS Aggregator RSS http://www.eevl.ac.uk/jiscnews/ • JISC Services RSS Aggregator: • Example of a Web-based RSS reader • Feeds determined by service provider

5. RSS file for home page (and similar) provides links to each issue RSS file for an issue provides table of contents for issue RSS As A Navigational Aid RSS http://www.cultivate-int.org/ • RSS feeds for structure of Cultivate Interactive created recently RSS files created in Aug 2006, usingRSSxl (see later)

6. But I can provide such navigation using my CMS? Yes, but remember that the interface can be embedded on 3rd party Web sites – which your CMS doesn’t manage Mashups – take the information to thepeople, don’t force them to come to you RSS & OPML As A Navigational Aid RSS • OPML provides an import/export function for groups of RSS files • Can also be used for navigation

7. http://www.technorati.com/search/jisc Thoughts – if you want to be visible in Technorati, you’ll need to create RSS – or encourage others to Blog about you Searching RSS Space RSS • Technorati provides a searching service for Blog space/RSS space http://www.technorati.com/search/edina

8. No need for a complex CMS! Some trivial edits allowed the feeds to be tidied up. File saved as static file with persistent URI. Approach v. useful for legacy data (old projects). Not will be even better in IE 7 / FF 2 world. Creating The RSS RSS http://www.wotzwot.com/ • Lot’s of ways, but a simple technique for existing resources is to make use of an HTML-RSS converter. • Can process: • ‘Microformats’ e.g. <span class= “rss:item”> • Arbitrary text such as <li>

9. Mapping Services & The Web • Web 2.0 provides valuable opportunity to provide mapping & location services: • Embedding Google maps on your Web sites • Developing rich services using this • Providing location metadata / microformats which can be processed by simple browser tools Location Services

10. http://northumbria.ac.uk/browse/radius5/ More sophisticated mapping applications are being developed, such as Radius 5 at Northumbria Univ. Google Maps Mashups http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/webmaster-2006/maps/ • Google Map ‘mashup’ used for IWMW 2006 event: • ~ 20 lines of JavaScript. • Code taken from Google Maps Web site and coordinates added Location Services

11. Location Metadata (1) http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/meetings/edinburgh-2006-09/ • Embedded location metadata can now by exploited by various 3rd party tools Location Services Note I shouldn’t do this, the organisation should be responsible for its own metadata (I’ve probably got the wrong building!) • How? Install Greasemap script & add: • <meta name="geo.position" content="55.944…, -3.187…" /> <meta name="geo.placename" content="Edinburgh University" />

12. http://geourl.org/near?p=http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/meetings/edinburgh-2006-09/http://geourl.org/near?p=http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/meetings/edinburgh-2006-09/ Location Metadata (2) • Same location metadata can be used by other applications. Location Services Note also Geo microformats – embed location inline in HTML text, which can be exploited by various tools

13. Challenges & Opportunities What Next? • Challenges: • Accessibility (can be addressed) • Resourcing • Reliability, robustness, quality, trust, etc. • Will users use it? Do they want it? • Opportunities: • Significant benefits at low cost • Being (slightly) at the leading edge • Discussing & sharing best practices, coordination • Software development (EDINA, UK, … scripts, etc) • … Key points: Much of this stuff can be easy to do, so let’s do it! Remember the benefits of scale (Metcalfe’s Law) that we (developers & our users) gain as more of us do this.

14. Discussion What Next? • Opportunity for general discussion Note resources cited in the talk are bookmarked in del.icio.us using tag '‘edinburgh-2006-09" Also note that briefing documents on various Web 2.0 issues (and other areas) are available on QA Focus Web site