Creating RSS files (revised)

It's time to get your blog and podcast linked. The key to this is RSS (Real Simple Syndication). RSS feeds let the end user check to see if you have anything new on your Web site. BlipTV has a nice discussion of how this works for the end user.

The key to RSS is setting up an XML document. You'll be setting up two types RSS files for your podcast, one for to create a list of your podcast files for use in a Web browser and the second so that someone can subscribe to your podcast using iTunes. Denis Sureau offers a nice discussion of the specific parts of a standard RSS feed. You'll want to make sure you use RSS 2.0.* If you want to check your RSS feed to make sure it is error free, open the XML file you created it Firefox--it has a debug feature.

A regular RSS feed and the feed you use for an iTunes subscription are a bit different. Standard RSS is transmitted using HTTP, while the RSS feed you use for iTunes uses ITPC. Creating content for iTunes also gives you the ability to add more metadata to your RSS document.

Here's the RSS feed I'm using for people that want to subscribe to my podcast using iTunes. You'll notice a tag that begins with . This is a remark tag and allows me to leave notes to you in the code explaining what things do. Hopefully it will help.

<?xml version= "1.0" encoding= "UTF-8"?>

<!-- This code is commented to help explain which section does what. Comments describe the code below them -->

<!-- Some of the text is from the Apple web site http://www.apple.com/itunes/store/podcaststechspecs.html-->

<!--this file does not contain all possible iTunes tags-->

<!-- rss xmlns - points to a document that defines what each of the iTunes tags-->

<rss xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd" version= "2.0">

<channel>

<!-- Time before the feed refreshes in minutes-->

<ttl>60</ttl>

<!-- The name of the podcast series that shows up in the Podcast column-->

<title>Adventures in EMAC</title>

<!-- website link and arrow in Name column-->

<link>http://www.depts.ttu.edu/masscom/programs/emac/index.php</link>

<language>en-us</language>

<!-- copyright information is not visible in iTunes 2217 is phonographic rights and A9 is the copyright symbol-->

<copyright>&#x2117; &amp; &#xA9; 2007 College of Mass Communications, Texas Tech University</copyright>

<!-- Text in the Description column-->

<itunes:subtitle>EMAC 4300</itunes:subtitle>

<!-- Text in the Artist column -->

<itunes:author>Ed Youngblood</itunes:author>

<!--when the circled i in Description column is clicked in the iTunes store-->

<itunes:summary>Podcast for students in EMAC 4300</itunes:summary>

<!-- similar to above, but describes the RSS channel-these two should probably be the same-->

<description> Podcast for students in EMAC 4300.</description>

<!-- This is a section and is composed of two tags which designate the name and email address of the person or persons associated with the podcast-->

<itunes:owner>

<itunes:name>College of Mass Communications, Texas Tech University</itunes:name>

<itunes:email>ed.youngblood@ttu.edu</itunes:email>

</itunes:owner>

<!-- The location of the album art-->

<itunes:image href="http://www.depts.ttu.edu/masscom/images/masscommofficiallogo.jpg" />

<!-- Category column and in iTunes Music Store Browse-->

<itunes:category text="Education">

<itunes:category text="Higher Education"/>

</itunes:category>

<itunes:category text="Mass Communications"/>

<!-- An individual podcast item-->

<item>

<!-- Title of the podcast episode that shows up in the Podcast column-->

<title>Adventures in EMAC Vol. 1</title>

<itunes:author>Ed Youngblood</itunes:author>

<!-- Text in the Description column-->

<itunes:subtitle>EMAC 4300 Vol. 1</itunes:subtitle>

<!--when the circled i in Description column is clicked in the iTunes store-->

<itunes:summary></itunes:summary>

<!-- Location of the audio or video file-See Apple link above for more file type information. Length is total number of bytes. In thisw case 2.9MB. See total bytes in file infor-->

<enclosure url="itpc://youngblood.mcom.ttu.edu/~nyoungbl/emac4300_1.mp3" length="2946723" type="audio/mpeg" />

<pubDate>Monday, September 11, 2007, 21:00:00 GMT</pubDate>

<!-- Length of podcast in hours:minutes:seconds-->

<itunes:duration>3:04</itunes:duration>

<!-- Searchable but not visable-->

<itunes:keywords>Mass Communications</itunes:keywords>

</item>

</channel>

</rss>

There is a link to the rssi.xml file under related links on the right hand side of the page. We will go over this in class in more detail--all the bugs should be worked out at this point. We will add somethings to this in the future.

Next up: Adding the various RSS options into Blogger!

* A word of caution on the Wikipedia entry. It's got a nice discussion of RSS 2.0, but is missing part of a line of code to validate correctly.