Advancing RSS

So, we all know that RSS = Really Simple Syndication. If you didn't, definitely check this out. I suspect the next generation will be something along the lines of NSSS (or Not-So-Simple Syndication). OK, so nifty acronyms aren’t really my thing.

Like most, we’d launched vanilla RSS some time back - delivering the latest and greatest information (largely public) to our users. We then moved the offering across our Intranet and Extranet properties, and continue to see solid user adoption.

The problem as I see it as that everyone is still pushing content at a relatively generic level.  As example, our Extranet site serves Customer, Partner and Field audiences (we call these identities). Each of these identities have their own distinct view, navigation, permissions, etc;. In addition, depending on the product / services you have, you become entitled to very granular assets within the site. Lastly, users are encouraged to customize the site via preferences (what vertical are you in, what's your operating environment, etc;). Traditional RSS does not support the complexity of a highly dynamic B2B site.

From my perspective, real value arrives when we can enable users to get very granular in terms of their subscriptions.

We're now sizing an effort that I believe will take RSS to the next level. By integrating our entitlements engine (RSA), our user's preferences (BEA) and our CMS system (Documentum) - We will be in a position to offer a dynamic and real-time subscription interface, assembled on the fly and derived based on all of the information for that particular user. When complete, a customer will be able to subscribe at the individual product level and, with great specificity, select if I want all information relevant to my specific product, software updates only, critical updates only, etc ., etc ., etc. Impressive when looking at over 300 products and half a million users.

It goes without saying that this would not be possible without a solid data object model across our content assets (probably a good topic for a subsequent post).  And by completely integrating with Documentum, content updates can be pushed to users in real time - When an asset matching my entitlements & subscription preferences is made available, the push through our XML feed will be immediate.

So I'm curious - Has anyone seen this done before? Granular RSS capabilities across protected content seems like a big miss. If someone's tackled it, I've yet to find it...

Cheers,
LD

Comments

[apoorv]

nice idea. How about giving this as an add on module in Documentum?

[Len D]

Apoorv - Thanks for the comment.

I believe this will be relatively straightforward with out of box functionality. Specifically, content assets are already tagged with entitlement values - So Documentum knows who a piece is intended for. In addition, we have very consistent attributes that identify what any asset is about - What product, what rev, what nature of asset is (patch, release note, etc;), and so on.

I believe the missing element is the ability to flag any piece of content as a 'RSS Candidate'. This should be as simple as adding a new meta data field / value.

Once you have the pieces in place, I believe it will be as simple as exporting daily content updates out of Documentum in XML format and parsing to our RSS system for distribution.

As I say, we're just now in sizing mode... There may be a piece I've missed but on paper it seems quite straight forward.

Cheers,
Len Devanna

[Chris M Evans]

Len, I've been bleating on about RSS feeds from vendors ever since I discovered the technology. I blogged about the lack of feeds a couple of years' ago. It amazes me that companies such as Brocade still don'r provide their news as RSS feeds. There's a huge opportunity there being missed. What I'd like to see is all vendors signing up to use RSS with additional filters indicating content type (bux fixes, software releases, marketing etc). At least that would be a start.

[Chuck Hollis]

Rock On!

Great topic, and great thinking you're providing! I'm glad you're on our team ... keep up the good work!