XMLNews, Dublin Core specs

[Mark Kennedy <MarkK@xxxx.xxxx]

Hey, all!

First of all, let me say "thanks" to Mark for getting this list started. I
feel this will be a great resource that will hopefully lead to something to
make all of our lives easier: an XML-based syndication standard!

> Existant Work
> There is a lot of work already out there. Other formats that are similar,
> and designed/promoted by primarily one entity include:
>
> * RSS  (Netscape) - Started it all. Netscape currently working on a new
> version.
> * ScriptingNews - WebLog. Started with RSS, moved to their own format.
Also
> working on new version.
> * MoreOverNews - proprietary news aggregation site.
> and others (list if you know of one)

I've looked at XMLNews (http://www.xmlnews.org/) and found it interesting;
there may be some good ideas there that could add to this discussion.
XMLNews is designed for syndicating news articles and information about news
articles. They have 2 formats, one for delivering the meta content about an
article (author, title, etc.), and another for delivering the actual
article.

It appears to me that XMLNews strikes a middle ground between formats like
RSS and ScriptingNews and  "heavier" formats like ICE.

I also have been interested in the Dublin Core subset of RDF:
http://purl.org/dc. There has been a lot of work done by the Dublin Core
folks that could be useful for a syndication discussion.

Personal info:

Just to explain where I'm coming from and what my interests are in
syndication: I work for The Motley Fool, a personal finance web site with a
large amount of editorial content. The biz dev folks are constantly working
on deals with portals, etc. to carry our content. In the past, every time
they inked a deal a new means of delivering the content was developed. Some
content is emailed to partner A; partner B gets their info FTP'd; partner C
gets it flown in by carrier pigeon; etc. I'm now trying to convince everyone
that we need an XML solution. Everyone (partners included for the most part)
agrees that XML is the solution, the question is "which format?"  Hence, my
interest in a list such as this one.

I've been trying to develop a format "behind closed doors" much like many
other people. The current iteration is here:
http://www.fool.com/foolhq/markk/xml/foolnews.xml It uses RDF (specifically
the Dublin Core Subset) as well as some Fool-centric tags for describing the
last week's worth of articles on the Fool site. A key feature that we need
is a way to describe which stock tickers are associated with each article.

One thought: There are (at least) two sides to the syndication game, content
providers and content distributors (for lack of a better word). Sites like
The Motley Fool are providers; portals are distributors. I very much hope
that this list gets a mixture of both breeds of organizations, because if a
bunch of providers come up with a solution that is ignored by the
distributors, no one wins. The reciprocal is true as well.

Anyway, enough from me. I look forward to the input of others!