RSS as Content API?
Here's a facinating series of articles on RSS that concludes by talking about RSS as a content api. It's a little out there, but there are some good points made on how RSS can be used for far more than the Simple Syndication it was orginally intended for.
RSS is like an API for content. RSS gives you access to a web site’s data just like an API gives you access to a web site’s computing power. Most important, RSS gives you access to your data that you have locked up on a web site.Every Web 1.0 company will have to decide what content they will open with RSS. For example, Amazon already makes their content like their book catalog available through their API. But will Amazon open up user-contributed content through RSS?
The current syndication standards we have available (RSS and Atom) have somewhat evolved past their original intentions, and are now providing some interesting ways of accessing, distributing and managing content - I've no particular love for atom, but it's my understanding that that standard may be better suited to syndicating services and more complex content.
Food for thought on your Labour day monday...
thanks to susan for the link.
I have yet to read the
I have yet to read the article, but there are numerous sites/applications that are turning up that combine a few items, mainly google maps and some free source of info - craigslist for apartment rentals, hot or not for pictures... and chuck them onto a map and make the info more useful/easier to navigate than in its original form.
At the moment it is all free but at some point I am guessing sites are going to start charging for use, or limiting what they make available via RSS. I think smart people could create some huge useful tools/sites that use others peoples data, reorganize it and make it more useful and flip it to a buyer quickly. They have to act fast, before people understand the power/value of their unorganized/poorly displayed information.