Re: [syndication] Digest Number 262

[Julian Bond <julian@netmarketseurope.com>]

In article <2995021553.20010506103105@calzo.com>, Pino Calzo
<pino@calzo.com> writes
>this brings me to the issue how to code "wired". There doesnt seem to
>be an international standard which uniquely identifies the Wired
>Magazine (and all the private weblogs out there, which can be a
>source,too). Problem with simple text coding are obvious: A site like
>NewsIsFree, parses the newsfeed and creates links. How can the
>software now know that Wired, Wired Magazine (and whatever synonym
>there may be) is the same.

My immediate thought here is to ask why you want to be able to reference
a specific source over time. This is the only reason I can see for
wanting to define a unique ID. 

I don't like the idea of an "international standard for IDs" because
it's very hard to do it in an open and extendible way. For our purposes,
I think that a Domain name or perhaps the <channel>.<link> value is
sufficiently accurate for any reference you're likely to want.  

>In the B2B-World there is the same issue with international catalog
>coding. They have been looking for a way to give every supplier an
>unique ID. They came up with the Dun&Bradstreet (DUNS) Number, which
>every company gets with registration. That way everybody knows, that
>1541212 equals "Staples" (example, not real life number).

In my B2B life we ended up doing the same thing, using DUNS. It works
fine in the US, poorly in Europe and is less than useless in SE Asia.

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