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Ubiquitous Online News: Content Syndication and the Semantic Web

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Title: Ubiquitous Online News: Content Syndication and the Semantic Web


1
Ubiquitous Online News Content Syndication and
the Semantic Web
  • Dr Axel Bruns
  • Creative Industries Faculty
  • Queensland University of Technology
  • a.bruns_at_qut.edu.au

2
Blogging and Open News
  • Not done in isolation, but highlighting the
    interconnection between amateur and professional
    writers
  • Practice of gatewatching publicising and
    commenting on content found elsewhere on the Web
  • Depends on individuals ability to identify and
    point to interesting material content
    discovery as much as on the quality of their
    commentary
  • Automated mechanisms for identifying material are
    now becoming available especially news
    syndication

3
News Syndication
  • News syndication is nothing new common practice
    in mainstream news since the invention of the
    telegraph
  • Now direct access to syndicated news is possible
    today, in effect, the pipeline goes straight to
    the citizen (Kovach Rosenstiel)
  • Removal of intermediaries as well as potential
    for new sources to syndicate their own news
    e.g. Indymedia news wire
  • But who the heck has time to read all this
    stuff? (Lasica)

4
News Syndication Technologies
  • Combination of push and pull models
    syndication feeds need to be discovered and
    linked to (pull), but then deliver news
    automatically (push)
  • Key format Rich Site Summary (RSS, a.k.a. Really
    Simple Syndication)
  • XML format that forms part of the W3C Resource
    Description Framework (RDF)
  • Provides key news story details (e.g.URL, title,
    time, author, summary, )
  • Introduced by UserLand
  • Used by Netscape Netcenter
  • Now in use in most blogging systems
  • Sample feed BBC World News

5
Syndication Uses
  • Stand-alone news readers(e.g. AmphetaDesk)
  • Embedded inWebsites (e.g.snurb.info)
  • Websites often allow directcommentary
    onsyndicated news
  • So, syndication feedsprovide raw materialfor
    blogging andsimilar uses

6
Alternatives to RSS Syndication
  • Brute-force syndication
  • E.g. GoogleNews
  • E.g. Syndic8, NewsIsFree scraping of headlines
    from sites without RSS feeds
  • Dubious legal status
  • News aggregators
  • E.g. GoogleNews
  • E.g. Technorati, Blogdex, Daypop
  • Able to monitor prominent and emergent memes
    across individual sites
  • Trend towards a reappropriation/depropriation of
    news items and the perception of swarms of
    related news items

7
Limitations
  • Much rhetoric of RSS as democratising
  • But power differences between small-time
    operators and mainstream news sources remain
    visible
  • Still no direct way to attach ones commentary
    directly to the source article
  • In the blogosphere, this is being addressed e.g.
    through TrackBack mechanisms which trace
    distributed discussions across multiple blogs

8
Towards a Semantic Web (?)
  • Combination of
  • RSS (outward syndication),
  • TrackBack (inbound syndication),
  • and Semantic Web (more intelligent tagging of
    information)
  • could enable bidirectional syndication or
    intercast (Elin) of news and commentary
  • E.g.
  • original article on BBC World News,
  • embedded into other sites through syndication,
  • multiple responses on various blogs,
  • linked to original article on BBC site and
    themselves embedded into other sites through
    syndication again
  • Result a flexible news intercast which takes
    place across multiple sites irrespective of news
    sources or site technologies

9
Newssharing
  • Analogies to filesharing
  • Content (news items / songs) detached from
    context (online newspapers and sites / CDs and
    DVDs)
  • Content discovered through sophisticated and
    automated tools and pieced together in new
    combinations by users
  • Similar ethical, commercial, legal questions
    e.g., does it help or hinder product sales?

10
Syndication and the News Industry
  • Stephen Gray, publisher of U.S.-based newspaper
    The Christian Science Monitor, on RSS
    syndication
  • I look at the Web as an opportunity to have a
    million doorways to the Christian Science
    Monitor. I think of it as a progression from
    one end, where it's free, to the other end, where
    it's paid. The pipeline has to be really big at
    the out end to bring in lots of beginners if you
    want to maximize the number of subscribers at the
    other end. (qtd. in Lasica)
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