Content Aggregation

Overview

With the growing number of sites providing CC licensed content (ccHost installations, ccMixter, Internet Archive, Jamendo, etc), the ability of users to find and explore new content is becoming increasingly important. One way to approach this problem is by developing a standard for aggregating content, much the way an RSS Reader aggregates news feeds. A content aggregator would presumably then be able to index the incoming feeds on its own and provide the user with information about content she's likely to be interested in.

This approach bears a strong resemblance to some other technologies currently available:

• RSS or Atom
• Yahoo! Media RSS
• OPML

Additional desirable features which may not be directly addressed using the above technologies:

• User ratings and moderation
• User tags (ala Flickr -- hey, everybody's doing it)

This project would ideally have several work products:

• Specification for publishing a feed of content with licensing information
• Specification for rating and moderation ping backs
• Implementation of feed publication and rating aggregation in the ccHost codebase
• Proof of concept server-side aggregator which would allow users to register their feeds and then publish an aggregated feed.

I'm currently thinking of the final item using the following, hand-waving descriptions:

• "Planet" for CC licensed content (only prettier)
• Technorati for content
• Maybe a CcHost installation that *only* aggregated content from others

Next Steps

• Determine what, if anything, is necessary to add to existing feed formats.
• Determine what the state of feed publication in ccHost is.
• Discuss ways to aggregate ratings and moderation information.
• Write draft specification.