What is RSS?

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is an XML-based format for content distribution. News, information, enterprise applications and weblogs (blogs) can all be published in RSS. When a new article is posted or a change is made to an application, RSS feeds can automatically notify the user. Text, images, audio (including podcasts) and video can be incorporated into RSS feeds.

How Does RSS Impact Business?

For Individual Users, RSS feeds can help keep you up-to-date on news, information and blog posts, making you more knowledgeable and productive, both at work and at home. According to Technorati as of March 2006, there are more than 30 million RSS feeds available. Most mainstream news and information sites publish RSS feeds.

For Enterprises, there are a number of different use cases for RSS since both internal (enterprise applications, blogs, reports) and external (industry news, competitive information, blogs) content can be delivered as feeds. In particular, many businesses see benefits by not having to periodically check Web sites for key updates or wade through traffic on e-mail distribution lists. In addition to increasing knowledge and productivity, RSS feeds can also be used for brand monitoring, crisis communications, internal/executive communications and competitive intelligence.

For Publishers, Media Companies and Other Content/Information Providers, RSS feeds offer readers, visitors and customers a convenient way to read and access their information. RSS feeds can also be incorporated into Web sites to offer a more personalized and rich user experience, strengthen the brand and maximize revenue opportunities.

How do I Use RSS?

To view RSS feeds, you will need an RSS reader or aggregator. There are a number of free or low-cost online, desktop, mobile and Outlook--based readers available. To leverage RSS for a large number of users inside of a company, you will likely need an RSS server to handle security and scalability issues, centrally manage users and groups and present a common interface. To aggregate RSS into an external Web site, you will also need a server-based solution, either hosted or customer-premise based.

How do I Publish RSS Feeds?

Several companies offer tools to help convert information from XML or HTML to RSS feeds. There are also a number of companies that offer hosted or downloadable applications for publishing RSS feeds, as well as blogs, podcasts and other content.

AJAX Presentation Outline

What is AJAX?

Asynchronous JavaScript + XML
XMLHttpRequest Object
A geek marketing term
Rich Internet Applications with JavaScript

Examples of AJAX

GMail
Google Maps
Basecamp

Is it new?

Not Really
Hidden Frames
IE5+, Mozilla 1.0+, Safari 1.2+, and Opera 7.6+

Why is it popular?

Google helped popularize, and legitimize it in GMail
Increase Usability of Web Applications
Rich Internet Applications without Flash
Save Bandwidth
Download only data you need
Faster interfaces (sometimes)

Why is it bad?

Breaks back button support
URL's don't change as state changes
Cross Browser Issues can be a pain
JavaScript may tax older machines CPU
Can't access domains other than the calling domain
May be disabled (for security reasons) or not availiable on some browsers

Flash vs AJAX

No plugin for AJAX
Flash development tools cost money
Flash typically has slower page load time
Flash can work on older browsers
ActionScript doesn't havea cross browser issues
Flash can access other domains if there is a crossdomain.xml file

XMLHttpRequest

A JavaScript Class that lets you make asynchronous HTTP requests from JavaScript
Make an HTTP request from a JavaScript event
A call back JavaScript function is invoked at each state of the HTTP request and response

XMLHttpRequest Properties

onreadystatechange - call back function for state changes
readyState - the current state of the HTTP call
responseText - the text result of the request
responseXML - DOM xml object from the request
status - HTTP status code of the response
statusText - HTTP status text