On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 5:33 AM, rcade <cadenhead@...> wrote:
> --- In aggregators@yahoogroups.com, "tsidhuus" <tsidhuus@...> wrote:
>  > We need to build a RSS reader in our application. I wanted to
>  > understand when I query a RSS feed do I get entries from the beginning
>  > of time that RSS feed was created.
>
>  When you request a feed, you usually get from 10-15 of the most recent
>  items from that publisher. Although there's no prohibition against
>  including more items (or going back forever), I'm not aware of any
>  publisher doing that. The bandwidth hit would be huge.
>

The difficulty is that there is no prescribed mechanism in RSS itself
for what should be returned, or how to query it. RSS is just a format.

However, there is increasing use of OpenSearch for doing things like
pagination in feeds, and then including OpenSearch-Time for a
mechanism feed services can allow readers/developers to specify time
spans, and then page through the results.

--- In aggregators@yahoogroups.com, "tsidhuus" <tsidhuus@...> wrote:
> We need to build a RSS reader in our application. I wanted to
> understand when I query a RSS feed do I get entries from the beginning
> of time that RSS feed was created.

When you request a feed, you usually get from 10-15 of the most recent
items from that publisher. Although there's no prohibition against
including more items (or going back forever), I'm not aware of any
publisher doing that. The bandwidth hit would be huge.

> We need to build a RSS reader in our application. I wanted to
> understand when I query a RSS feed do I get entries from the beginning
> of time that RSS feed was created.

There is no mechanism to do this in RSS.  None at all.

> Is there a way to say, here is the latest feed I have, give me newer
> items with RSS or is that not how RSS works.

Nor this.

Hi,

I found this information difficult to get and found this group, so
asking the question.

We need to build a RSS reader in our application. I wanted to
understand when I query a RSS feed do I get entries from the beginning
of time that RSS feed was created.

If I then check the feed again (say 1 hour  later), do I get all the
entries again and then deduplicate based on GUID.

Is there a way to say, here is the latest feed I have, give me newer
items with RSS or is that not how RSS works.

Tony

I know MS filed two RSS related patents:
(1)US20060288011 Finding and consuming web subscriptions in a web browser;
(2)US20060288329 Content syndication platform.

Are there any other issued or pending patents about RSS?

Thanks!

Hi there,

I have an ebook and hardcopy paperback coming out in 2007. A ebook
publisher suggested that I use aggregates first. What do they mean by
that? and how do I go about it..Tony.

I have only an introductory webpage at present.

http://www.westminstertimefiles.com

Jeremy Zawodny is asking for suggestions on how to bring Yahoo Groups
up to date on his blog.
http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/006541.html

--- In aggregators@yahoogroups.com, "Bill Kearney" <ml_yahoo@...>
wrote:
>
> > I've reached the conclusion that "private" RSS feeds that require
> > authentication is a bad idea.
>
> I disagree.
>
> > The problem is that RSS is frequently
> > consumed by spiders, robots and other automated apps and then
> > re-purposed.
>
> Automated apps wouldn't have the auth keys.  Thus the feed would
never get
> seen by them.
>
> > This re-purposing often results in the items then appearing
> > in a public feed with no authentication. So even though you serve
up the
> > feed securely you really have no idea what happens to it later. An
> > example of this was a feed that was dropped into Newsgator by a
user. it
> > later turned up in Newsgator's public search. This is not a
refelection
> > on Newsgator necessarily and I know they do try and keep HTTP-Auth
> > protected feeds out of their public database.
>
> The existance of the RSS feed URL can't be assumed to stay
private.  That
> something else might possess the URL doesn't compromise the
contents.
>
> > In theory this should be no different from HTTP-AUTH protected web
> > pages. But in practice the RSS community is much less careful
about
> > respecting privacy than the relatively smaller community of
people that
> > write automated apps to access html pages.
>
> I don't think this is any different than any other computer program.
> E-mail, for example, does nothing to prevent simple forwarding, let
along
> cut/paste.  Nor do web pages.  Feeds aren't any more or
less 'respecting' in
> this regard.
>
> > The point here is that if we write aggregators we should try to be
> > careful about respecting feeds that should be private. In
practice, this
> > can be hard. And as a feed provider you shouldn't assume that your
> > private feed will stay private.
>
> If it's behind an http auth you've reason to assume that unless the
user
> also republishes their username/password combo it'll remain safe
for the
> first pass.
>
> > Which is all a long winded way of saying that if you want a feed
from a
> > Yahoogroup, then make the group open. What is the group owner
trying to
> > hide anyway?
>
> I likewise disagree on this point.  It's tragically disappointing
that yahoo
> has not come to grips with this problem.  That they cannot offer
their list
> members the option of using RSS for their lists shows they really
don't get
> RSS.
>
> -Bill Kearney
>

http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/03/30/the-state-of-online-feed-readers

> I've reached the conclusion that "private" RSS feeds that require
> authentication is a bad idea.

I disagree.

> The problem is that RSS is frequently
> consumed by spiders, robots and other automated apps and then
> re-purposed.

Automated apps wouldn't have the auth keys.  Thus the feed would never get
seen by them.

> This re-purposing often results in the items then appearing
> in a public feed with no authentication. So even though you serve up the
> feed securely you really have no idea what happens to it later. An
> example of this was a feed that was dropped into Newsgator by a user. it
> later turned up in Newsgator's public search. This is not a refelection
> on Newsgator necessarily and I know they do try and keep HTTP-Auth
> protected feeds out of their public database.

The existance of the RSS feed URL can't be assumed to stay private.  That
something else might possess the URL doesn't compromise the contents.

> In theory this should be no different from HTTP-AUTH protected web
> pages. But in practice the RSS community is much less careful about
> respecting privacy than the relatively smaller community of people that
> write automated apps to access html pages.

I don't think this is any different than any other computer program.
E-mail, for example, does nothing to prevent simple forwarding, let along
cut/paste.  Nor do web pages.  Feeds aren't any more or less 'respecting' in
this regard.

> The point here is that if we write aggregators we should try to be
> careful about respecting feeds that should be private. In practice, this
> can be hard. And as a feed provider you shouldn't assume that your
> private feed will stay private.

If it's behind an http auth you've reason to assume that unless the user
also republishes their username/password combo it'll remain safe for the
first pass.

> Which is all a long winded way of saying that if you want a feed from a
> Yahoogroup, then make the group open. What is the group owner trying to
> hide anyway?

I likewise disagree on this point.  It's tragically disappointing that yahoo
has not come to grips with this problem.  That they cannot offer their list
members the option of using RSS for their lists shows they really don't get
RSS.

-Bill Kearney

Not a new idea - I remembered reading about it on "Dive Into Mark" -
see here:
http://diveintomark.org/archives/2002/05/30/rss_autodiscovery. Lots
of tools have already incorporated auto-discovery (like Firefox, for
example...)

see also:  http://rssexplorer.planet-hood.com/ - an oldie that I
used for quite a long time.

regards, M.


--- In aggregators@yahoogroups.com, "Nick Dynice" <nickd@...> wrote:
>
> I am wondering if anyone has made an app in PHP that can look at a
web
> page and find a feed address on the page.  This way, you could
give the
> aggregagor a generic root web address, and then have it detect and
use
> the feed address.
>
> I see it could be done any number of ways.  It could end
> in .rdf, .xml, .php.  I know that Firefox has a way to detect a
feed on
> a page, and it puts the orange feed icon in the bottom right
corner of
> the window.
>
> Thanks.
>

sdorfman.rm <sdorfman@...> Tue, 28 Feb 2006 06:34:43
>Sorry for the slight off-topic-ness of this post, but I'm trying to get
>Yahoo to enable RSS
>authentication so I can keep up with several yahoo groups (that don't
>allow non-members
>to view messages) via RSS instead of email.  If you'd like to see Yahoo
>add this feature,

I've reached the conclusion that "private" RSS feeds that require
authentication is a bad idea. The problem is that RSS is frequently
consumed by spiders, robots and other automated apps and then
re-purposed. This re-purposing often results in the items then appearing
in a public feed with no authentication. So even though you serve up the
feed securely you really have no idea what happens to it later. An
example of this was a feed that was dropped into Newsgator by a user. it
later turned up in Newsgator's public search. This is not a refelection
on Newsgator necessarily and I know they do try and keep HTTP-Auth
protected feeds out of their public database.

In theory this should be no different from HTTP-AUTH protected web
pages. But in practice the RSS community is much less careful about
respecting privacy than the relatively smaller community of people that
write automated apps to access html pages.

The point here is that if we write aggregators we should try to be
careful about respecting feeds that should be private. In practice, this
can be hard. And as a feed provider you shouldn't assume that your
private feed will stay private.

Which is all a long winded way of saying that if you want a feed from a
Yahoogroup, then make the group open. What is the group owner trying to
hide anyway?

--
Julian Bond  E&MSN: julian_bond at voidstar.com  M: +44 (0)77 5907 2173
Webmaster:           http://www.ecademy.com/     T: +44 (0)192 0412 433
Personal WebLog:     http://www.voidstar.com/    skype:julian.bond?chat
                      *** Just Say No To DRM ***

--- In aggregators@yahoogroups.com, Jeremy Zawodny <jzawodn@...> wrote:
>
> Believe it or not, we got the message a while ago...
>
> But it's a non-trivial change to our infrastructure and one not to be
> taken lightly.
>
> Jeremy

Thanks for replying, Jeremy.  I'm glad the message got to the right people.

Perhaps looking at the way livejournal has implemented RSS authentication would
be
helpful.  They set it up so "friends only" post could be viewed in RSS feeds. 
Their RSS url is
like this:
https://MY_LIVEJOURNAL_USERNAME:MY_LIVEJOURNAL_PASSWORD@www.livejournal.com/
users/MY_FRIEND'S_USERNAME/data/rss?auth=digest

Sniffing the traffic, it looks like Livejournal is using MD5.

The security question:
Is their RSS authentication secure enough? I.e. can I leave my feedreader
refreshing every
30 minutes even when I'm on an open wi-fi connection without fear that my
livejournal
password will be compromised?

I asked this same basic question in an offtopic comment on this slashdot
article:
LiveJournal XSS Security Challenge
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/31/1324257

Someone replied:
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=175728&pid=14607767#14607982
Digest auth (which I assume from the URL is what LJ is using here) uses a
one-time nonce
as a challenge, so capturing your response would not benefit an attacker since
the same
response cannot be replayed. Also, the MD5 hash you're seeing your client send
is based
not only on your password and the nonce but also on the HTTP method being used
and
the URI being requested. Digest auth does have its flaws, but I think it's
secure enough for
this purpose.

I found a good article about private rss feeds here:
http://labs.silverorange.com/archives/2003/july/privaterss

I hope that info helps.
Thanks for listening,
Simon

Wow, this group is pretty dead.  You asked this back in November and
no one replied?

Technically, aggregators do not crawl sites.  They hit feeds, and
feeds contain the content of your blog.

Look around different blogs and see what they are using as add
buttons.  Besides the ones you mentioned, there is Google's two
readers, Rojo, tehcnorati, MyMSN, FeedLounge.  Just Google "rss
readers."

--- In aggregators@yahoogroups.com, "roseysmall" <rcisneros@...>
wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I'm hoping you can help me.  I'm needing to know what are the
> aggregators/readers used by the main news readers MyYahoo,
FeedReader,
> NetNewsWire, NewsGator, Bloglines, RSS Feeder.net, SAGE, etc.
>
> I'm looking into adding similar features on my website and would
like
> to research the ones that these sites use.
>
> Also, when the RSS reader for the above crawls the site, what
indexing
> do they use? Any knowledge of any or all of the above would be of
> great help.
>
> Thank you for any help you can provide.
>
> Rosa
>

I am wondering if anyone has made an app in PHP that can look at a web
page and find a feed address on the page.  This way, you could give the
aggregagor a generic root web address, and then have it detect and use
the feed address.

I see it could be done any number of ways.  It could end
in .rdf, .xml, .php.  I know that Firefox has a way to detect a feed on
a page, and it puts the orange feed icon in the bottom right corner of
the window.

Thanks.

Sorry for the slight off-topic-ness of this post, but I'm trying to get Yahoo to enable RSS authentication so I can keep up with several yahoo groups (that don't allow non-members to view messages) via RSS instead of email. If you'd like to see Yahoo add this feature, please send them feedback like I did by going to this URL:
http://tinyurl.com/jzr7p
...or by taking the following steps:
Go to: http://add.yahoo.com/fast/help/us/security/cgi_feedback
Fill in your Yahoo! ID, name & email address.
Select "Other" for the subject.
In the Feedback text field, enter this text (or write your own):
I can only view the RSS feeds of all yahoo groups that allow non-members to view their messages. Please enable RSS feed authentication. That will allow me to view RSS feeds of all yahoo groups I'm subscribed to, even if they don't allow non-members to view their messages.
I've created a link that will fill in that text for you:
http://add.yahoo.com/fast/help/us/security/cgi_feedback?
select40=opt405&textarea50=I%20can%20only%20view%20the%20RSS%20feeds%20of%
20yahoo%20groups%20that%20allow%20non-members%20to%20view%20their%
20messages.%20Please%20enable%20RSS%20feed%20authentication.%20That%20will%
20allow%20me%20to%20view%20RSS%20feeds%20of%20all%20yahoo%20groups%20I'm%
20subscribed%20to,%20even%20if%20they%20don't%20allow%20non-members%20to%
20view%20their%20messages.
Here's a tinyurl version of that same link:
http://tinyurl.com/jzr7p
Thanks,
Simon
P.S.- Feel free to blog about this and spread the word so yahoo gets the message that many people would like this feature.
http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/aggregators
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aggregators/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
aggregators-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

Sorry for the slight off-topic-ness of this post, but I'm trying to get Yahoo to
enable RSS
authentication so I can keep up with several yahoo groups (that don't allow
non-members
to view messages) via RSS instead of email.  If you'd like to see Yahoo add this
feature,
please send them feedback like I did by going to this URL:
http://tinyurl.com/jzr7p

...or by taking the following steps:

Go to: http://add.yahoo.com/fast/help/us/security/cgi_feedback

Fill in your Yahoo! ID, name & email address.
Select "Other" for the subject.
In the Feedback text field, enter this text (or write your own):
I can only view the RSS feeds of all yahoo groups that allow non-members to view
their
messages.  Please enable RSS feed authentication.  That will allow me to view
RSS feeds of
all yahoo groups I'm subscribed to, even if they don't allow non-members to view
their
messages.

I've created a link that will fill in that text for you:
http://add.yahoo.com/fast/help/us/security/cgi_feedback?
select40=opt405&textarea50=I%20can%20only%20view%20the%20RSS%20feeds%20of%
20yahoo%20groups%20that%20allow%20non-members%20to%20view%20their%
20messages.%20Please%20enable%20RSS%20feed%20authentication.%20That%20will%
20allow%20me%20to%20view%20RSS%20feeds%20of%20all%20yahoo%20groups%20I'm%
20subscribed%20to,%20even%20if%20they%20don't%20allow%20non-members%20to%
20view%20their%20messages.

Here's a tinyurl version of that same link:
http://tinyurl.com/jzr7p

Thanks,
Simon

P.S.- Feel free to blog about this and spread the word so yahoo gets the message
that
many people would like this feature.

Which aggregators offer direct BitTorrent enclosure support with
automatic download via BT?

A little while ago, Dave Winer was asking about BT on the server in a
form that made it easy to build podcasts of BTed media files. I went
back and had another look at BlogTorrent http://www.blogtorrent.com/ and
it looks like this pretty much handles it now. Including running a BT
client on the server so that there is always one seed. I'm not connected
in any way but was impressed with the job they'd done.

--
Julian Bond  E&MSN: julian_bond at voidstar.com  M: +44 (0)77 5907 2173
Webmaster:           http://www.ecademy.com/     T: +44 (0)192 0412 433
Personal WebLog:     http://www.voidstar.com/    skype:julian.bond?chat
                      *** Just Say No To DRM ***

Hi,
   I've just released RSS Popper for Outlook Express (Alpha 3). I think
it's the first RSS reader for OE but I'm not sure.

http://www.rsspopper.com

Cheers,
   Sagi

Hi,

I've got a TypePad blog and want to use the "blog this" capability in
FeedDemon *or* find another aggregator that will do the same thing.

Trying to use instructions provided here,
http://glenn.typepad.com/news/2003/10/posting_to_type.html, I pasted
the following into the command line windoid for configuring the "Blog
This" function:

https://www.typepad.com/t/app/weblog/post?
is_qp=1&qp_show=tb,ca,ac,ap,cb,ex,tm,kw&__mode=edit_entry
&qp_title=$ITEM_TITLE$&qp_href=$ITEM_LINK$&qp_text=$ITEM_DESCRIPTION$

Then, when I attempt to blog an article, I get taken to a TypePad
error page. Anyone got any ideas about how to configure FD properly so
I can use it with TypePad or what other aggregator I might use to get
the same functionality?

What I want is to have a list of postings filtered by keyword, quickly
scan through them, and blog the ones I find interesting or important.

Thanks,

Tom Maddox

Hi,

I'm hoping you can help me.  I'm needing to know what are the
aggregators/readers used by the main news readers MyYahoo, FeedReader,
NetNewsWire, NewsGator, Bloglines, RSS Feeder.net, SAGE, etc.

I'm looking into adding similar features on my website and would like
to research the ones that these sites use.

Also, when the RSS reader for the above crawls the site, what indexing
do they use? Any knowledge of any or all of the above would be of
great help.

Thank you for any help you can provide.

Rosa

There have been numerous discussions about the proper frequency at
which to poll an RSS or Atom feed, and also many discussions about how
feeds might inform aggregators about their change frequency. The
general consensus seems to be that every half-hour is acceptable.

Now that many sites are offering APIs, I am curious as to what proper
behavior is for using them. Particularly under circumstances where one
aggregator is serving many users. Many sites require a registered key,
presumably so that abusive usage can be detected and banned. And some
sites limit the number of calls that can be made in a given period.
All of this makes sense. Sort of.

If I am a web-based aggregator, I can grab the same RSS feed once, and
serve it to all my users. They are all looking for the same thing.
However, if I allow my users to query an outside service through an
API, typically, they are all going to be asking for slightly different
data. I can't make one call to the API and serve the results to
everyone for the next half-hour. I can cache individual queries, but I
am generally going to making many more calls to the site than if I am
simply grabbing the feed.

What approach should be taken to limit abusive use of the API, yet
still make use of it's functionality in a meaningful way to end users?
I can't imagine asking each user to bring their own API keys. Most
wouldn't know what it is or where to get one.

This is not just a rhetorical question. My aggregator, fyuze.com,
allows users to tap into the APIs of other sites (Flickr,
Upcoming.org, Technorati, Amazon) and I want to have an open
discussion about how to harness these APIs to provide the user with
interesting data without being abusive of the services that provide is.


Justin Klubnik.

Julian,

I agree about the password, but the feeds are am referring are "kind
of" private.  I just don't want them to show up in my yahoo content
search.  Here is a better example: take Netflix.  You can go to RSS
portion of your account and get your outstanding queue as RSS feed.
If everyone's personal queues would come up in searches, that
wouldn't make much sense.

According to yahoo, you can put a directive into robots.txt and this
would prevent yahoo spider to index the page.  Unfortunately it
doesn't work, it still appears in the search.

So I tried robots.txt, I tried setting up various HTTP expiration
headers, so far nothing helps so far.  This may end up being done on
a corporate level.

See this link:
http://my.yahoo.com/s/faq/rss/publishers.html#preventuse
This doesn't seem to work.

Andre

--- In aggregators@yahoogroups.com, Julian Bond <julian_bond@v...>
wrote:
> Andre Taube <andre.taube@s...> Wed, 8 Jun 2005 16:16:59
> >Does anyone know how to prevent My Yahoo making a private RSS feed
> >searchable.  So if I have an RSS feed that I want someone to add to
> >their My Yahoo, I don't want anyone go to "add content" and being
able
> >to find that feed.
> >
> >Any pointers are greatly appreciated!
>
> If it's private, don't put it on the web. ;-)
>
> Seriously though, the only sure fire way to do this is to use http
auth
> and require an id and password. Most aggregators have a way of
storing
> these so that authorised people will be able to read it. But it
will
> stop a spider (like Yahoo) from accessing it.
>
> --
> Julian Bond E&MSN: julian_bond at voidstar.com  M: +44 (0)77 5907
2173
> Webmaster:             http://www.ecademy.com/  T: +44 (0)192 0412
433
> Personal WebLog:      http://www.voidstar.com/  S:
callto://julian.bond
>                       *** Just Say No To DRM ***

One more thing:

If I add the following to /robots.txt

User-agent: YahooFeedSeeker
Disallow: /

It'll prevent yahoo to access the site.  See my access_log (hopefully
it doesn't wrap much)

66.218.65.53 - - [09/Jun/2005:09:38:44 -0700] "GET /rss2?
id=129387129387192837198237 HTTP/1.0" 200 812 "-
" "YahooFeedSeeker/1.0 (compatible; Mozilla 4.0; MSIE 5.5;
http://my.yahoo.com/s/publishers.html; excluded by line 2
of /robots.txt)"


But this also doesn't allow adding RSS feed to my yahoo nicely.
Their web page prints and error about exclusion as well.

Andre

--- In aggregators@yahoogroups.com, Julian Bond <julian_bond@v...>
wrote:
> Andre Taube <andre.taube@s...> Wed, 8 Jun 2005 16:16:59
> >Does anyone know how to prevent My Yahoo making a private RSS feed
> >searchable.  So if I have an RSS feed that I want someone to add to
> >their My Yahoo, I don't want anyone go to "add content" and being
able
> >to find that feed.
> >
> >Any pointers are greatly appreciated!
>
> If it's private, don't put it on the web. ;-)
>
> Seriously though, the only sure fire way to do this is to use http
auth
> and require an id and password. Most aggregators have a way of
storing
> these so that authorised people will be able to read it. But it
will
> stop a spider (like Yahoo) from accessing it.
>
> --
> Julian Bond E&MSN: julian_bond at voidstar.com  M: +44 (0)77 5907
2173
> Webmaster:             http://www.ecademy.com/  T: +44 (0)192 0412
433
> Personal WebLog:      http://www.voidstar.com/  S:
callto://julian.bond
>                       *** Just Say No To DRM ***

Julian Bond wrote:
> Andre Taube <andre.taube@...> Wed, 8 Jun 2005 16:16:59
>
>> Does anyone know how to prevent My Yahoo making a private RSS feed
>> searchable.  So if I have an RSS feed that I want someone to add to
>>  their My Yahoo, I don't want anyone go to "add content" and being
>> able to find that feed.
>>
>> Any pointers are greatly appreciated!
>
> If it's private, don't put it on the web. ;-)
>
> Seriously though, the only sure fire way to do this is to use http
> auth and require an id and password. Most aggregators have a way of
> storing these so that authorised people will be able to read it. But
> it will stop a spider (like Yahoo) from accessing it.

Yup, Julian is right.  My Yahoo! currently doesn't store your login
credentials or handle "private" feeds.

Jeremy
--
Jeremy D. Zawodny, <jzawodn@...>
Technical Yahoo - Yahoo Troublemaker
Desk: (408) 349-7878  Cell: (408) 685-5936

Andre Taube <andre.taube@...> Wed, 8 Jun 2005 16:16:59
>Does anyone know how to prevent My Yahoo making a private RSS feed
>searchable.  So if I have an RSS feed that I want someone to add to
>their My Yahoo, I don't want anyone go to "add content" and being able
>to find that feed.
>
>Any pointers are greatly appreciated!

If it's private, don't put it on the web. ;-)

Seriously though, the only sure fire way to do this is to use http auth
and require an id and password. Most aggregators have a way of storing
these so that authorised people will be able to read it. But it will
stop a spider (like Yahoo) from accessing it.

--
Julian Bond E&MSN: julian_bond at voidstar.com  M: +44 (0)77 5907 2173
Webmaster:             http://www.ecademy.com/  T: +44 (0)192 0412 433
Personal WebLog:      http://www.voidstar.com/  S: callto://julian.bond
                       *** Just Say No To DRM ***

Hi folks,

Does anyone know how to prevent My Yahoo making a private RSS feed
searchable.  So if I have an RSS feed that I want someone to add to
their My Yahoo, I don't want anyone go to "add content" and being able
to find that feed.

Any pointers are greatly appreciated!

Hi

This has been a common discussion topic here and elsewhere since we've
started. A few archive searches will turn up a bunch of threads; this
one was the first...
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aggregators/message/87

Yes, despite all that discussion, little RSS "superstructure" has come
into play. Ideas have ranged from NNTP to P2P to Akami. I think
there's some very good reasons that nothing has been built, not all
because of the decentralized nature of the stakeholders.

Perhaps individual RSS readers will not end up being a problem. From
my rough impressions, the majority of RSS reading is happening in
server based systems, like Bloglines and MyYahoo, or perhaps within
corporate intranets with proxies. I wouldn't be surprised to see
client interfaces from the commercial services: wouldn't that
effectively solve the problem?

Of course, individuals aren't the only ones reading RSS. The number of
robots collecting my RSS feeds is excessive.

What seems to be really missing is a set of best practices for RSS
aggregators (of all kinds) and servers, covering etags, gzip encoding,
polling frequency, redirection, banning procedure, etc. This would be
incredibly handy to point to.

Mikel

--- In aggregators@yahoogroups.com, "Chris (QWAD Technologies)"
<chris.were@g...> wrote:
>
> Hi,
> I've built an RSS/Atom aggregator and was pleasantly surprised to
find
> this mailing list.
>
> Obviously one of the main issues facing online feed aggregators is
the
> regular polling of feeds. There are various ways to help combat this
> problem (blogs pinging, etags, last-mod headers etc.) but none of
them
> perfect or a complete solution.
> Has there been any movement or suggestion to get various aggregators
> to work together and form some type of distributed feed network?
> Such a network could have an open API allowing desktop readers to
> query for updates to feeds and web readers/aggregators could have
new
> items for registered feeds sent as they enter the central network.
> Various aggregators using the same system could have responsibility
> for a subset of feeds and only worry about updating those, while
still
> having access to all the feeds other aggregators are regularly
> updating. Down the track such a network would have a strong pulling
> power to help update the technology behind web feeds....
> There would definately be various logistical issues to work out
(with
> an open world wide communication network), but not unfeasible. It
> could be supported by some of the larger aggregators to help get off
> the ground - although I don't see that as necessary.
>
> Is anyone doing this already? If not, why not?
>
> Regards,
> Chris

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Hi, (I think this is my first post for this mailing list)

I thought about it a little bit and posted to my blog a few days ago.
http://www.witha.jp/blog/archives/2005/04/p2p_feed_client.html
(written in Japanese though..)

the entry talks about possibility of using P2P distributed network as a
means of feeds distribution.

My conclution was that
"Do we really need to move on to P2P network NOW while the good old HTTP
  way manages to work OK(not perfect but, hey) so far."
"Well, if not now, then when? We don't know."
"One thing I'm sure is that a lot of developers would dislike the use of P2P
because developing a P2P client requres a sophisticated skill and knowledge
  of ICP/IP, UDP which means cost maney. The virtue of the current feed
aggregation
  is that it's just a simple HTTP GET."
But, of cource, more people use it more tools created.


that was just random thoughts of mine.
any thoughts?



>
>Hi,
>I've built an RSS/Atom aggregator and was pleasantly surprised to find
>this mailing list.
>
>Obviously one of the main issues facing online feed aggregators is the
>regular polling of feeds. There are various ways to help combat this
>problem (blogs pinging, etags, last-mod headers etc.) but none of them
>perfect or a complete solution.
>Has there been any movement or suggestion to get various aggregators
>to work together and form some type of distributed feed network?
>Such a network could have an open API allowing desktop readers to
>query for updates to feeds and web readers/aggregators could have new
>items for registered feeds sent as they enter the central network.
>Various aggregators using the same system could have responsibility
>for a subset of feeds and only worry about updating those, while still
>having access to all the feeds other aggregators are regularly
>updating. Down the track such a network would have a strong pulling
>power to help update the technology behind web feeds....
>There would definately be various logistical issues to work out (with
>an open world wide communication network), but not unfeasible. It
>could be supported by some of the larger aggregators to help get off
>the ground - although I don't see that as necessary.
>
>Is anyone doing this already? If not, why not?
>
>Regards,
>Chris
>