rss

Google Chrome for Mac came out of beta today (see "Google Chrome for Mac: Ready, beta, now stable!") with many new features, but not with built-in RSS support. Even my first-generation iPhone can do better than that (granted, with a redirect through an Apple server to parse the XML of the feed into something intelligible). An RSS feed still displays as a jumble of text:

Not that I spend a lot of time reading RSS feeds in my browser, but if I click on one (intentionally or otherwise), I really ought not get gibberish. If Google intends Chrome to be a serious competitor in a marketplace of choice for Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Safari, it really ought not leave users in the lurch. This is very un-Google-like behavior.

This is just the most recent in my series of rants about Google Chrome and RSS here, here, and here.

Found a new-to-you blog that you want to read, but you don't want to get sucked into it for the next few hours? RSS Replay looks like the tool for you. Give it an RSS feed and how often you want it to give you a new post, and it will do the rest. You can specify a new item from the backfile every day, every few days, or other intervals. You can also set a PageRank filter so you only see posts that have PageRanks above a specific threshold (all, good, great, or best).

This brings "slow reading" to a much different level!

Have you even wanted to subscribe to an RSS feed in Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, Bloglines or Google Reader (or anywhere else, for that matter), but discover that the feed is inconveniently served from behind a login-protected server? We all have, I think. Well, now a free web service allows you to do just that. As convenient as it is, this is a spectacularly poor idea.

FreeMyFeed handily takes care of those pesky login problems. You give it your feed URL, your login, and your password. It then gives you an alternate URL at FreeMyFeed that contains your login information in an encoded way. FreeMyFeed then acts as a proxy, grabbing the feed without storing your login credentials on its own server, and passing it along to your reader:

So I created a COMPLETELY FAKE login for this blog's feed. The login does not exist, does not work, and is (of course) not a real login to anything: username rss4lib and password temp1234. The FreeMyFeed link that encodes this is:
http://freemyfeed.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5yc3M0bGliLmNvbS9pbmRleC54bWw6OnJzczRsaWI6OkxzUGcwWHRrRktDUytJdkFrUTFMN0RvNk5BPT0=

Well, it is encrypted, but there's usually a good reason that a feed is behind a login. This takes those feeds and puts them out in the public, where any search engine find them, index them, and expose your organization's secure information. End runs around reasonable security are poor choices. I would recommend that, if your organization has RSS behind a login, that you work with your technical group to block FreeMyFeed from accessing your site.

To their credit, there is a fairly explicit disclaimer of the risks on the FreeMyFeed front page, that includes a warning to be careful and not to share your personalized URL with anyone (other than the feed readers, of course). So if you must use this tool, use it only on your own browser, not on an aggregator to minimize the sharing of an all-access URL to your feed. Don't be tempted.

I attended my first Internet Librarian conference this past week in beautiful Monterey, California. While my blog posts were infrequent, I soaked up a lot of good information from the presenters.

Wednesday morning's session with a panel of three 'born digital' students was fascinating. Why I found it easier to grok this generation's approach to technology from hearing it from their mouths, rather than reading Pew Internet reports or the work of danah boyd, I'm not sure. I was pleased to hear the members of this panel state how they understood the differences between 'any old online resource' [my phrasing] and the 'good stuff' [again, my words] libraries provide. I was entertained and a bit amazed at what I understood to be their attitude about technological innovation: that the speed of evolution in how we communicate and interact with the world around us is normal and unending. It makes me feel older than my years to hear eloquent and thoughtful high school students hold forth on the normalcy of technologies that I find, frankly, amazingly innovative and cool. I was struck by one of the participants' statements that "twitter is dead"; amended by the youth librarian who helped convene the panel, who added "twitter was never alive." The fact that this quote was repeated many times in the following minutes and hours on Twitter struck me as entertainingly ironic

Mobile devices and mobile computing were a focus of the conference as well. It seems that there is tremendous energy in libraries toward making services and functions available to the handheld devices. In not too many years, mobile devices will be the de facto standard of internet access, the one everyone has -- not a computer. (This will be especially true in the developing world, which will bypass landline networking much as large swaths of the world have bypassed landline telephony.) An important point to remember is that the world does not use the iPhone, as much of a phenomenon it has been in some places. Even if the world is using mobile devices, they may not be using full graphic interfaces on those devices. Does this presage the reappearance of more gopher-like interfaces, ones that are much simpler to navigate on small-screen devices?

The Web Presence & Experience track was filled with excellent examples and advice on web design. Presentations covered a range of topics. Refreshingly, it seemed that everyone assumed that usability would be taking place -- it is simply part of the process, not a super extra-special tool that only some people use. Innovation centered on services and enabling functionality, and much less on user testing and validating of designs. This is an excellent step.

Another interesting thing that I noticed is that almost nobody mentioned "RSS" as a tool or technology that needed to be explained. As I noted in my post about the lack of RSS support in Google Chrome last month, RSS is becoming invisible plumbing, something that just happens and is assumed. It appears less an active tool, and more a passive way to exchange information. Twitter, on the other hand, is alive and well. At least, among the Internet Librarians in attendance. As I publish this, there have been about 500 tweets with the #il2009 hashtag, from (in my estimate) 1,000 conference attendees.

And finally, a sign of the times.... In the lobby of the Monterey Marriott was the following sign, which made me wonder: Is there any other kind?

I found a new tool (via a review at ReadWriteWeb) that offers a visual presentation of changing RSS feeds: Spectives, a "search for visual news." Conceptually, it's quite interesting. Its use of intellectual property is unfortunate.

Spectives is focused on visual content. It ignores plain text entries on a blog, highlighting those posts with images. I created a collection called RSS and added this blog's feed to it; Spectives pulled in the most recent posts that included images:

Interestingly, Spectives ignores posts with embedded video (at least, the UStream feed embedded in a recent post on this blog).

Spectives' front page offers a one-minute tutorial right up front -- probably because the point of the tool is a bit vague, if intriguing -- and then lists popular and featured collections. The "Nature Photography" collection (under featured) offers pictures from five photography feeds; the "Celebrities" collection pulls in feeds from 15 gossip/tabloid sites.

While the tool is interesting, its mechanism for getting users to the source content is highly annoying. Each collection (and search) comes with its own RSS feed that includes all the items in the source's feed, not restricting it to images. Clicking to the full text of an item in the RSS feed takes you to the original site, which makes sense. However, Spectives puts a translucent toolbar across the bottom of the page with a link "Back to Spectives" and a link to share the post on Twitter -- with a Spectives URL built in. Here's a sample of my previous post, in its entirety, with a Spectives URL and my Creative Commons license, along with the Spectives toolbar.

(Click image for full size version)

At the moment, this is probably in technical compliance with the Creative Commons license -- however, as the "advertise" link on the bottom of every Spectives web page indicates, the site is clearly trying to monetize other peoples' content. In my opinion, Spectives' reproduction of my entire web site separated from my URL crosses an ethical, if not legal, line. I am not a fan.

Another version of Google Chrome (version 4.0), on a new platform (now for Mac OS 10.5 and up) and the same old news about RSS: support isn't there in the browser. Both RSS 2.0 and Atom feeds display inline in the browser as a huge jumble of text. (Get Chrome for Mac.)

(Click image for full size version)

I've railed about the lack of RSS support for either rational inline display or for live bookmarks since the earliest versions of Chrome here and here.

Otherwise, a quick test of the new Chrome beta for Mac shows that it's fast and efficient, as I've come to expect from Chrome's Windows betas. I'm not sure I'll trade over from either Safari or Firefox, even when Chrome does get RSS support, but Chrome is coming along.

Another version of Google Chrome (version 4.0), on a new platform (now for Mac OS 10.5 and up) and the same old news about RSS: support isn't there in the browser. Both RSS 2.0 and Atom feeds display inline in the browser as a huge jumble of text. (Get Chrome for Mac.)

(Click image for full size version)

I've railed about the lack of RSS support for either rational inline display or for live bookmarks since the earliest versions of Chrome here and here.

Otherwise, a quick test of the new Chrome beta for Mac shows that it's fast and efficient, as I've come to expect from Chrome's Windows betas. I'm not sure I'll trade over from either Safari or Firefox, even when Chrome does get RSS support, but Chrome is coming along.

Another version of Google Chrome (version 4.0), on a new platform (now for Mac OS 10.5 and up) and the same old news about RSS: support isn't there in the browser. Both RSS 2.0 and Atom feeds display inline in the browser as a huge jumble of text. (Get Chrome for Mac.)

(Click image for full size version)

I've railed about the lack of RSS support for either rational inline display or for live bookmarks since the earliest versions of Chrome here and here.

Otherwise, a quick test of the new Chrome beta for Mac shows that it's fast and efficient, as I've come to expect from Chrome's Windows betas. I'm not sure I'll trade over from either Safari or Firefox, even when Chrome does get RSS support, but Chrome is coming along.

I found a new tool (via a review at ReadWriteWeb) that offers a visual presentation of changing RSS feeds: Spectives, a "search for visual news." Conceptually, it's quite interesting. Its use of intellectual property is unfortunate.

Spectives is focused on visual content. It ignores plain text entries on a blog, highlighting those posts with images. I created a collection called RSS and added this blog's feed to it; Spectives pulled in the most recent posts that included images:

Interestingly, Spectives ignores posts with embedded video (at least, the UStream feed embedded in a recent post on this blog).

Spectives' front page offers a one-minute tutorial right up front -- probably because the point of the tool is a bit vague, if intriguing -- and then lists popular and featured collections. The "Nature Photography" collection (under featured) offers pictures from five photography feeds; the "Celebrities" collection pulls in feeds from 15 gossip/tabloid sites.

While the tool is interesting, its mechanism for getting users to the source content is highly annoying. Each collection (and search) comes with its own RSS feed that includes all the items in the source's feed, not restricting it to images. Clicking to the full text of an item in the RSS feed takes you to the original site, which makes sense. However, Spectives puts a translucent toolbar across the bottom of the page with a link "Back to Spectives" and a link to share the post on Twitter -- with a Spectives URL built in. Here's a sample of my previous post, in its entirety, with a Spectives URL and my Creative Commons license, along with the Spectives toolbar.

(Click image for full size version)

At the moment, this is probably in technical compliance with the Creative Commons license -- however, as the "advertise" link on the bottom of every Spectives web page indicates, the site is clearly trying to monetize other peoples' content. In my opinion, Spectives' reproduction of my entire web site separated from my URL crosses an ethical, if not legal, line. I am not a fan.

I attended my first Internet Librarian conference this past week in beautiful Monterey, California. While my blog posts were infrequent, I soaked up a lot of good information from the presenters.

Wednesday morning's session with a panel of three 'born digital' students was fascinating. Why I found it easier to grok this generation's approach to technology from hearing it from their mouths, rather than reading Pew Internet reports or the work of danah boyd, I'm not sure. I was pleased to hear the members of this panel state how they understood the differences between 'any old online resource' [my phrasing] and the 'good stuff' [again, my words] libraries provide. I was entertained and a bit amazed at what I understood to be their attitude about technological innovation: that the speed of evolution in how we communicate and interact with the world around us is normal and unending. It makes me feel older than my years to hear eloquent and thoughtful high school students hold forth on the normalcy of technologies that I find, frankly, amazingly innovative and cool. I was struck by one of the participants' statements that "twitter is dead"; amended by the youth librarian who helped convene the panel, who added "twitter was never alive." The fact that this quote was repeated many times in the following minutes and hours on Twitter struck me as entertainingly ironic

Mobile devices and mobile computing were a focus of the conference as well. It seems that there is tremendous energy in libraries toward making services and functions available to the handheld devices. In not too many years, mobile devices will be the de facto standard of internet access, the one everyone has -- not a computer. (This will be especially true in the developing world, which will bypass landline networking much as large swaths of the world have bypassed landline telephony.) An important point to remember is that the world does not use the iPhone, as much of a phenomenon it has been in some places. Even if the world is using mobile devices, they may not be using full graphic interfaces on those devices. Does this presage the reappearance of more gopher-like interfaces, ones that are much simpler to navigate on small-screen devices?

The Web Presence & Experience track was filled with excellent examples and advice on web design. Presentations covered a range of topics. Refreshingly, it seemed that everyone assumed that usability would be taking place -- it is simply part of the process, not a super extra-special tool that only some people use. Innovation centered on services and enabling functionality, and much less on user testing and validating of designs. This is an excellent step.

Another interesting thing that I noticed is that almost nobody mentioned "RSS" as a tool or technology that needed to be explained. As I noted in my post about the lack of RSS support in Google Chrome last month, RSS is becoming invisible plumbing, something that just happens and is assumed. It appears less an active tool, and more a passive way to exchange information. Twitter, on the other hand, is alive and well. At least, among the Internet Librarians in attendance. As I publish this, there have been about 500 tweets with the #il2009 hashtag, from (in my estimate) 1,000 conference attendees.

And finally, a sign of the times.... In the lobby of the Monterey Marriott was the following sign, which made me wonder: Is there any other kind?

I jumped on the Facebook bandwagon as it was pulling out of town and created a Facebook page for RSS4Lib (become a fan!). In the process, as I was adding the RSS feed for this blog using the Notes tool, I noticed something more than a little annoying: RSS feeds added to a Facebook page using Facebook's Notes application are rewritten to drive all traffic from that version of the feed to Facebook, not your own site. While clearly in Facebook's financial interest to bring more traffic to Facebook, they do so without explicit permission.

When you set up an RSS feed into Facebook notes, you are asked to agree to a brief terms and conditions that says, in its entirety, "By entering a URL, you represent that you have the right to permit us to reproduce this content on the Facebook site and that the content is not obscene or illegal."

However, Facebook's concept of "reproduce on the Facebook site" and mine are somewhat different. While I fully understood that my blog posts would be presented inside Facebook -- as they are on the RSS4Lib Notes page, I am surprised that the associated RSS feed includes rewritten channel and item data. As an example, take a look at the feed's channel data:

<channel>
<title>RSS4Lib: Innovative Ways Libraries Use RSS's Facebook Notes</title>
<link>http://www.facebook.com/notes.php?id=81126379633</link>
<description>RSS4Lib: Innovative Ways Libraries Use RSS's Facebook Notes</description>
<language>en-us</language>
<category domain="Facebook">NotesFeed</category>
<generator>Facebook Syndication</generator><docs>http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification</docs>
<managingEditor>http://www.facebook.com/pages/RSS4Lib-Innovative-Ways-Libraries-Use-RSS/81126379633</managingEditor>
<webMaster>webmaster@facebook.com</webMaster>
...
</channel>

The feed's link goes to Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/notes.php?id=81126379633). That page provides reproductions of recent posts. Clicking on a post title, within Facebook, brings up that page in another Facebook page. There is a tiny link at the bottom of the page to "View original post".

The individual items in the RSS feed are likewise rewritten:

<item>
<guid>http://www.rss4lib.com/2009/05/feedmil_finds_feeds.html</guid>
<title>Feedmil Finds Feeds</title>
<link>http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=82829822943</link>
<description>Full Text of Post Goes Here</description>
<pubDate>Wed, 13 May 2009 16:39:36 +0000</pubDate>
<author>RSS4Lib: Innovative Ways Libraries Use RSS</author>
<dc:creator>RSS4Lib: Innovative Ways Libraries Use RSS</dc:creator>
<source url="http://www.rss4lib.com/index.xml">http://www.rss4lib.com/2009/05/feedmil_finds_feeds.html</source>
</item>

They rewrite the link. They change the author from what it is in the original post, "rss4lib@gmail.com (Ken Varnum)", assign a creator that is not the author cited in the original post, and link to an RSS feed as the source. (Facebook does display the URL of the post, but clicking it goes to the feed. Depending on your web browser, it may not be helpful behavior to get an XML file.) They don't provide attribution for individual posts on the site.

The way Facebook is using my content does not fit my understanding of the Creative Commons "Attribution Non Commercial License" I have applied. Among other things, it states that:

You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work)
You may not use this work for commercial purposes.

I'm willing to give on point 2 -- yes, I understand that by reproducing my blog on Facebook's site that I'm contributing to their commercial gain -- but on point 1, I did not waive my right to appropriate attribution as specified in the license on the blog by agreeing to "reproduce" the blog on their site. If this is "remixing," allowed in the Attribution Non Commercial license, requires that the licensee "takes reasonable steps to clearly label, demarcate or otherwise identify that changes were made to the original Work." This has not been done.

This sort of misuse of content happens all the time, of course, but rarely so blatantly.

Related Posts

RSS Feeds & Copyright (May 2008)
Creative Commons and Bloggers (August 2008)
Copyright, RSS, and Common Sense (September 2007)

A new feed-finding search engine, Feedmil, has made an appearance. Feedmil is a feed-only search engine with some clever interface features to help you narrow down your search.

Feedmil's Google-inspired front page asks, "what are you into?" and provides a sliding control so that you can adjust the results from "surprising" to "well known" -- at either end. Want only well known feeds? Move the left end of the slider to the right. As soon as you let go of the slider, your search starts -- keeping you from adjusting both ends. I found it a bit surprising that the search started as soon as I moved a slider.

Feedmil gives you many ways to limit or refocus your search once it's presented the initial results. Here are the results of a search for "rss library" (I was hoping to pull up my own blog, which did, though not in the first place that I crave...):

There are several filtering options running across the top: Feed type (starts at 'all feeds', but also lets you narrow searches down to blog feeds, microblog feeds, podcasts, public media feeds, and social media feeds); sort options (Feedmil rank, quality, and relevance), and language.

On the right, there's a "topic significance" section that lets you select how much weight each of the topics (as determined by Feedmil) should have. Playing with these sliders reorders the search results; as with the front page, as soon as you let go of a slider, the display changes. If you want to restrict results to only one extreme or the other, simply move the slider all the way over.

Disturbingly, the results are displayed differently even if you don't move the slider at all. For example, here's the above search before and after clicking (but not moving) the "library catalog" slider:

I need to spend some more time using this tool, but I'm favorably impressed with my first look (aside from the odd interface issues noted above).

Via What I Learned Today.