INQ7 offers RSS and gaming gets its due

This story was taken from www.inq7.net

INQ7 offers RSS and gaming gets its due
First posted 00:31am (Mla time) Mar 09, 2006
By Joey Alarilla
INQ7.net

WHILE browsing the INQ7.net site, you might be pleasantly surprised -- or puzzled -- to find these letters in orange strategically located in the Breaking News box and other sections: XML/RSS.

What this means is that, after a few months of beta testing, INQ7 has now officially launched its RSS service, offering feeds for the Breaking News; Top Stories; Nation; Metro; Regions; Opinion and Editorial; Entertainment; Infotech and Sports sections, as well as the following special reports: The Pacquiao Files, ULTRA Stampede, Leyte Landslide, Edsa 20, The Good News and State of Emergency.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, a file format that allows you to easily access information from different online sources, including news sites and blogs, by subscribing to the feeds from these webpages. The beauty of it is that the content is automatically updated and you no longer have to individually visit different sites.

RSS is one of the formats defined under XML -- aargh, another geeky acronym, heh -- which stands for eXtensible Markup Language. Think of it as the cooler younger cousin of plain old HyperText Markup Language. Simply put, XML allows you to publish content in a format that can be used for different platforms and accessed using different devices, plus it can handle multimedia a lot better than HTML, which as its name makes clear was originally designed just for text. Yup, kids, back in the dark ages, the Internet was only text -- can you believe that?

"RSS feeds are a convenient way for readers to get the news that interests them on the site. Eventually there will be an RSS feed for all sites and sections on the network," INQ7.net editor in chief Javier Vicente Rufino told me when I asked him if the service will be rolled out to all INQ7.net sections and expansion sites.

JV added that RSS feeds could help INQ7.net reach out to new readers.

"I believe so. It should attract web grazers who like to view news from several sources at once," he said.

The INQ7 RSS service is part of the company’s overall thrust to allow readers to access information anytime, anywhere. JV made me promise not to spill the beans on the new content and services from our editorial department that you’ll be seeing in the next few months -- but you can get a hint of what’s in store by checking out the INQ7 @ 5 anniversary site.

Let’s just say that one of these new content offerings will keep things, um, current. Right, JV? Heh.

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You know gaming is really serious business when businessmen start taking notice.

I’ve been invited by the Philippine Internet Commerce Society to be one of the guest speakers at the ICT Business Forum that will be held on March 21 at the Ayala Hall, Makati Sports Club in Makati City as part of the 12th Philippine Internet Anniversary celebration. I was invited, in my capacity as founding president of the Asian Gaming Journalists Association and co-editor of hackenslash, to talk about how online gaming can drive the growth of e-commerce in the Philippines. Hmm, didn’t I just write a column about that, heh.

Proving that when it rains, it pours, Luli Arroyo also invited me to be a guest speaker at the MindShare session on March 15 at the Asian Institute of Management in Makati City. MindShare is a joint project of the Foundation for Information Technology Education and Development (of which Luli is the director for Operations), the AIM, and the Philippine Venture Capital Investment Group.

Luli asked if I could talk about the latest trends in online gaming. You bet I said yes.

It’s gratifying to see that, slowly but surely, we are starting to take gaming more seriously in this country. It’s not a fad, people.

February was a really busy month for me, but now it looks that I’ll be even busier in the next few months, apart from the stuff I’m doing for INQ7.net (More multimedia? New sections? Revamped sites? All of the above?).

For one, I’m working on my first book. Inquirer Publications Inc. has signed me up to write a book on e-business, which was commissioned by PICS. I’m really excited over this because it’s my first book, plus I came up with a framework and approach for the book that I hope we can pull off -- after all, the execution of whatever idea you have also depends on time and budget constraints. Hope you’ll buy a copy, heh.

The funny thing is that just last week, I was also invited to be part of another book project -- this time to write one of the chapters. And no, this book won’t be technology-related.

Plus I’m cooking up another project with the help of friends and fellow journalists. It’s still too early to give details, but let’s just say I believe in the second coming of dotcoms -- but with a twist.

Till next time, keep on playing.

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E-mail the author at joeyalarilla@gmail.com and visit his blog at www.alarilla.com.