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Introducing the new Windows CE Power channels (continued)
Designing the shareables technology was a first step towards making true multi-purpose content possible and so we wrote this code first. While writing it and looking for ways to test it out, we discovered that there was an interesting side effect: we could also share our content with other Web sites and tools. This is called "syndication" and in the sense that certain elements of our site can be easily used on other sites, it's much like the way newspapers syndicate columns or television producers syndicate TV shows. In fact, there were some simple standards designed to let us do just this.
So, we went ahead and built some "channels".
Introducing channels
Many portals use something called channels. This term was once a popular "push" concept, popularized by the "where are they now?" PointCast network. On portals like Netscape's Netcenter, you can subscribe to the Top News channel, or the Financial News channel, or the Tech News channel. The channels contain a list of headlines which are updated throughout the day, and you can read the stories right there on the Netscape Web site.
But Netscape went one step further. They created a format, called RSS (which stands for RDF Site Summary), that site developers like us can use to create channels you can install on My.Netscape.Com. As a result, when you log into the My Netscape network, you can see our channels, along with those of other far-thinking Web developers, as shown in Figure A.
FIGURE A
 
Windows CE Power has two channels (News and How-Tos) on the My Netscape network. You can also see other ZATZ channels here as well. Roll over picture for a larger image.
If you're a My.Netscape user, you can subscribe to our channels easily. Here are the subscribe links:
Even earlier than Netscape's RDF work, a fellow named Dave Winer (actually, my old boss--it's a small world) developed a site syndication format for his My.Userland site. Userland also sells Frontier, the development tool used to build much of ZENPRESS. While his format was really the same XML-based (i.e., Extendable Markup Language) RSS format used by Netscape, he was a little more forgiving in his specifications. For example, My.Netscape limits you to nine items; Dave's format did not. Thinking it would be interesting to see how a channel looked with both news headlines and article titles, we built a separate syndication file for Dave's My.Userland.Com portal, as shown in Figure B.
FIGURE B
 
You can get both news headlines and article titles on My.Userland.Com. Roll over picture for a larger image.
Carmen's Headline Viewer
It's interesting what happens once you start sharing information. One afternoon, I got an email from a programmer named Carmen. Interestingly, Carmen tells us she likes to present a mysterious aura to her many fans and would prefer we not print her last name. So from now on, she's not only Carmen, she's the Carmen.
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