What is content syndication?

Content syndication has gained mainstream awareness thanks to the explosive phenomenon of weblogging, to the point that many believe it to be a native technology of the “blogosphere.” On the contrary, syndication is quite…

Content syndication has gained mainstream awareness thanks to the explosive phenomenon of weblogging, to the point that many believe it to be a native technology of the “blogosphere.” On the contrary, the syndication is quite earlier.

As then, Syndication is the name given to the mass distribution of content on the web through a special type of XML file called a feed accessible through Feed Aggregator programs.

Content Syndication

Content Syndication has gained mainstream awareness thanks to the explosive phenomenon of weblogs (universally known as blogs), to the point that many believe it to be a native technology of the “blogosphere.” Quite the contrary, syndication is well before these days of fame.

Originally developed by Netscape, it participated in the failed attempt to popularize the distribution of content (generally news) through thematic channels. This method of distribution was called “push technology” since the information was not requested but sent (pushed) to the receiving user.

The fact is that the market was not yet ripe for this truly innovative concept, so syndication was left aside until a better opportunity.

As then, today Syndication is the name given to the massive distribution of content on the web.

Strictly speaking, after the inclusion of some new content on a site, what is distributed is a list of links along with a certain amount of additional information or metadata.

The links will point to that new content and the additional information will allow recipients to assess whether the content is of interest to them, in which case they will access the full version simply by following the link.

The first syndicators of online content were mega sites of the magnitude of Yahoo and Excite. His proposal was very clear: that his visitors could access information from very diverse sources from a single place.

For a while, syndication was too expensive and cumbersome as it was done by retrieving the title of each page and checking all the HTML (which is meant to display content but not organize it) to detect headers and links. and then categorize them. Such a task was not within the reach of anyone.

The big novelty for syndication arose from the use of XML files.

RSS files

An RSS file is the structural description of a website in XML format.

RSS is a language that emerged from the application of the XML metalanguage. Therefore, an RSS file will not be more than a text document made up of labels delimited between the greater and lesser symbols, similar to those used in XHTML.

The term RSS stands for Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication.

It is interesting to note that it is a format that is not designed for viewing (like HTML) but for interaction between computers, offering information in a standardized format.

For this process to be possible, a website must generate a feed or channel (the RSS file) that will remain hosted on the server just like the other files that make it up.

Once the feed is available, other systems will be able to access it and thus learn of the new content that the site offers.

Today the sites that allow the creation and maintenance of personals such as Blogger and the applications that facilitate it in any domain have automated the generation of feeds, so that users only have to manage their content.

Without too much mystery, the contents will then be syndicated.

To read RSS feeds or channels it is necessary to use a type of program generically called an aggregator.

Feed Readers or Aggregators

RSS files, unlike XHTML files, are not interpreted by web browsers and when they are opened, what they do is display the XML code that composes them.

To view a feed directly, it is necessary to use a feed reader or aggregator program.

There are different types of spreaders.

The web-based ones (usually called Portals) allow viewing on a web page. A typical example of this type of aggregator is the already mentioned Yahoo with its aggregator or the .

Other aggregators are integrated with email clients or are exclusively RSS clients.

Aggregators offer a variety of special features, such as including multiple related feeds in a single view, hiding posts that have already been read, and categorizing feeds into subject areas.

Why unionize?

In the first instance, visitors will appreciate being able to view a site without actually visiting it.

This, which at first appears as conspiring against the “visibility” of the site, is actually a very interesting strategy to increase and retain visitors.

Those interested in a particular topic will always be aware, through their aggregators, of the appearance of new content and will have that content just a click away.

This mechanism replaces the tedious visit to sites of our interest waiting to find something new.

Probably the most important point to note is that Syndication is by no means a phenomenon of Blogs, nor is it exclusive to news sites.

Any information that can be broken into items can be distributed via RSS with enormous benefits for both the creator of the information and its potential recipients.

How to continue?

In a later article RSS Topics: How to syndicate the contents of a website, we will delve into this topic from a more operational point of view, building a feed step by step and then reading it from a web-based aggregator.