Web 2.0 Stores > Fast, Simple, Search Engine Friendly Ecommerce

Google this week announced the release of the Google AJAX Feed API. What is it? It’s a JavaScript library that lets you mashup RSS and Atom feeds entirely on the client, thus no need for server-side coding. In addition, one of the useful core features is that it can automatically map XML attributes to a JSON result format. To get a sense of what it can do, one of their example mashups has been added to our listings: the Google AJAX Tune Bar that lets you add iTunes RSS feeds to any page. If you’re familiar with JavaScript programming you’ll note that typically this sort of client-side mashup would have some limitations due to browser security constraints restricting data to only come from the same server a given page was delivered. But Google works-around this by having their servers act as a proxy cache for all feed requests made via the API. Which leads to a couple of other implications: “The AJAX Feed API, like Google Reader and the Google personalized homepage, caches individual entries within feeds and reconstructs feeds based on those entries. Consequently, feeds from the AJAX Feed API may not reflect the exact XML file from the URL you request. In many cases, you can request more entries from the AJAX Feed API than are currently available in the live feed.” It is also interesting that we’re seeing more JavaScript-based APIs from Google, including the AJAX Search API and the ever-popular Google Maps API. We’ll probably see more in the future given that they’ve introduced a new base url of google.com/jsapi and a generalized JavaScript API load process: “Loading the API requires two steps because Google is moving to a new model of loading AJAX APIs to make it easier to include multiple Google APIs on your pages. Subscribe to the Google AJAX APIs Blog for announcements as we start rolling out this new AJAX API loading mechanism.” This is one of those very useful but somewhat subtle APIs that has more power than may be initially apparent.

The Google AJAX API team has announced a genuinely useful Feed API that gives an Ajax developer the ability to access feeds, cached in the fast Google edge cache where appropriate, from across the web using a simple JavaScript API. This is a subtle service that does one thing that is currently a pain-point for developers of certain applications. Ajax developers now have a clean way to access public feeds on any domain, and get access to the content in a uniform way. Gone is the need for us to create a proxy on the server to access feeds from other domains. Gone is the need to have to deal with all of the feed types. RSS, Atom, RDF, we can now use either MIXED_FORMAT or JSON_FORMAT to use the uniform access. The full set of feed formats supported is Atom 1.0, Atom 0.3, RSS 2.0, RSS 1.0, RSS 0.94, RSS 0.93, RSS 0.92, RSS 0.91, RSS 0.9. The unified feed result elements are: title, link, description, author and a list of entries[]. The entries[] list has the following elements: title, link, content, contentSnippet, publishDate, and categories. XML and mixed formats allow you to also get access to the XML document itself, and then you can use standard DOM tactics to get what you want from that content (e.g. getElementsByTagName). You would want to use XML if you needed to grab out something specific from the feed, such as the digg:count. RSSBling Redone Funny story. Ben and I created Ajaxian.com as a place to host RSS Bling back in 2005, as you can see via the Wayback Machine. It was only later that we started the blog. RSS Bling was an offline RSS reader that we create as an example of doing offline and Ajax before it was cool. We got a lot of mileage out of doing presentations and unplugging the net and seeing that it still worked. One of our problems was getting access to feeds. We could have created a proxy to feeds, but instead we used bloglines as the proxy, and got the data from there. With the new Feed API we can go directly to the feeds itself. We ported RSS Bling to use the API, and you can view it here. Once you load the Feed API, you can grab a feed using google.feeds.Feed, passing in the feed URL, setting any values on it (e.g. the mode to use, how many entries you want in the result size, etc.), and then calling load(callback). The callback allows the API to grab the feed asynchronously, and holds the result itself. Here is an example from RSS Bling that loads a feed and shows the entries in the main window: I am really looking forward to seeing how the API is used. For more infomation you can visit the Ajax Feed API home or check out the FAQ.

Feedpass, the feed syndication service that got slammed by bloggers in May, has set its sights on MySpace users. The new “Feedpass for MySpace” tool allows anyone to enter a MySpace Friend ID and Google Adsense ID, then instantly create a MySpace-themed RSS subscription page for that blog. This misses the mark on a few levels: most MySpacers don’t use RSS, and it’s easier to subscribe to blogs through MySpace’s own interface. What’s more, Feedpass gives you the ability to monetize other people’s content without their permission (although I’m willing to bet that the majority of MySpace blogs aren’t worth monetizing anyway!). Once again, this looks like an attempt to ride the MySpace wave with little understanding of what MySpace users actually want (see also Browster). Since it took virtually no effort to implement MySpace support, it’s definitely worth a shot - I just don’t see it getting much uptake.

If you’re not reading this post on http://www.web2.0blognetwork.com, we’ve got a problem.

Actually, we noticed the problem yesterday. Seems like someone has been scooping up the RSS feed for Web 2.0 Blog Network and ‘repurposing’ it on another site - without attribution and without permission.

Now, of course it sounds like we’re getting snippy. And we are! Who wants to spend time crafting great blog posts, only to see them copied elsewhere?

The currency of Web 2.0 is attention and Google-juice (or Yahoo! juice, if you’re into that). We went searching for some blog postings about RSS etiquette, but most of them have to do with attribution - where you summarize or quote a few lines, then link to the original.

Steve Rubel wrote a great piece about Blog Content Theft, which will continue to be a problem as long as a) it makes money for the thieves, and b) advertising networks turn a blind eye to it.

So, if the blog you’re reading this on is not the Web 2.0 Blog Network, why not drop them a line and tell them what you think of RSS scraping?

[Syndicated from: Web2.0blognetwork.com]

ScratchProjects.com has posted both Part one and Part two in a new tutorial series, this time with a focus on creating a RSS feed reader by combining PHP and Ajax. In Part one they lay the foundation, explaining how the tutorial will work, what the parts are, and what the parts do. Then, it’s on to the code, showing first how to fetch and parse the remote feeds and create the DIV the results will be dropped into. Part two takes the next steps and creates the form to add a feed to be parsed, the functionality to insert it and its information into the database, and to grab the list of feeds from the database and read in the contents. It’s a pretty basic tutorial, but great for those just starting out with this handy, powerful functionality. It requires a bit of knowledge about PHP, but most of the code needed is spelled out for you. Plus, you can download the code as well.