Audience

This book was written with two somewhat interrelated groups in mind:

Web developers and web site authors

This book should be read by all web developers who want to share their site with others by offering feeds of their content. This group includes everyone from webloggers and amateur journalists to those running large-budget, multiuser sites. Whether you're working on projects for multinational news organizations or neighborhood sports groups, with RSS and Atom, you can extend the reach, power, and utility of your product, and make your life easier and your work more productive. This book shows you how.

Developers

This book is also for developers who want to use the content other people are syndicating and build applications that produce feeds as their output. This group includes everyone from fan-site developers wanting the latest gaming news and intranet builders needing up-to-date financial information on the corporate Web, to developers looking to incorporate news feeds into artificially intelligent systems or build data-sharing applications across platforms. For you, this book delves into the interpretation of metadata, different forms of content syndication, and the increasing use of web services technology in this field. We'll also look at how you can extend the different flavors of RSS and Atom to fit your needs.

Depending on your interests, you may find some chapters more necessary than others. Don't be afraid to skip around or look through the index. There are all kinds of ways to use RSS and Atom.