Factiva and RSS

Why Editor's Choice?
Editor's Choice is designed to give customers a quick sense of the current state of an industry.  It covers 30 industries with a limited selection of trend stories, analyses, commentary, profiles and overviews taken from the entire Factiva.com database.  Editor's Choice selections are made by industry specialists on Factiva's editorial team.  On average each industry channel receives 10-15 articles per week.

What content is available through RSS feeds?
Factiva is able to provide services to its customers by ensuring that our information providers get compensated correctly for all their content that is read.  To do this we use a subscription model, which requires that all users be authenticated to the Factiva platform to read articles.

 

What is the Authentication Process for RSS feeds?

IP authentication will not automatically allow access to the articles from a RSS reader.  In order to retrieve RSS feeds from Editor’s Choice articles, academic customers must first log into Factiva, select the tools link, then preferences and finally, select password (please see below).  Once this page has been opened, users will be able to select the “Save my user ID and password so I don’t have to enter it manually” to set a cookie and prevent them from having to enter a user ID and password when opening a Factiva RSS feed.

In addition, academic customers can also set up a cookie by entering a user ID and password on the Factiva login page.  Once the user ID and password is entered, users have the ability to activate a cookie that will allow them to automatically retrieve future articles from the reader.   This can be done by simply clicking on the “Remember my Login Information” box at the bottom of the user ID/password prompt (please see below)

As the authentication standard in RSS matures, Factiva will be the first to take advantage of it, particularly to produce RSS content solutions for the enterprise.

What is RSS?

What exactly is RSS?
RSS is an acronym that stands for RDF Site Summary, but is also known as Rich Site Summary.  It is actually an XML format which describes a channel of information, typically headlines, along with a URL or link back to the original information or article.  Much of the enormous growth of personal online publishing is being driven by RSS, which allows authors to easily syndicate their writings across the internet.  Because of this, many people say RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication."

How does RSS work?
Providers of syndicated content publish their latest news as an XML file.  Many websites publicize this file with a small orange tile . The file is formatted according to the RSS standard format, which mainly describes individual headlines,  and a link to the web page containing the article.  Some RSS files contain either a snippet of the content, or even the full text.

To receive an RSS feed, users must capture the location of the file, or URL, within an RSS reader.  There are many different RSS readers available on the internet - some are free, others are commercially available - and some larger applications also capture RSS feeds.  The RSS reader automatically searches the internet on a scheduled basis to look for the latest version of the RSS channel.  Some RSS can identify which items in the RSS feed are new and which have been retrieved before.

To view articles in an RSS feed, the user simply clicks on the headline, which is a hyperlink back to the original article that was syndicated, back on the original web site.  The article or item is displayed in a normal browser window.  Most of the RSS content available on the web is free and does not require authentication.  Many commercial content providers require users to log in to their website before viewing the RSS content.

Why do you think RSS is important?
RSS is the fastest growing technical tool in the world of online publishing and online collaboration.  Around 5% of the US Internet population use RSS feeds on a daily basis.  The growth of this technology has fuelled the explosion in blogs and online collaboration tools, which are becoming an increasingly important part of obtaining a 360°view of the world, alongside world-class business information.  However, this proliferation of RSS feeds and blogs will create issues for enterprises - Factiva is working to build solutions to address these issues.

How To ...

How do I set up RSS feeds from Factiva?
When you click on the XML tile next to the RSS channel of your choice, a new window opens.  The window will contain the actual feed content in XML format.  The browser address bar will contain the URL that generated the XML window.  Depending on how your RSS reader works, you may have to cut and paste the URL from the browser address bar into your reader.  Some readers can identify an XML/RSS browser window and automatically capture the location of the file.

How do I read Editor's Choice articles in my RSS reader?
To read Editor's Choice articles from Factiva in the RSS feed, open your RSS Reader and go to the Factiva Editor's Choice channel.  Accessing an article depends on how your RSS reader displays the articles, but most readers will show a headline and some other information.  Factiva's RSS feeds will show the headline and lead paragraph of each article as a hyperlink.  When you click on the link, your RSS reader will open Factiva.com in a browser window and attempt to log in and display the article.

Can I share the RSS files with my friends?
No.  Standard Factiva terms and conditions apply, so any sharing of information not covered within your contract is not permissible.  In any case, the RSS tools require a standard Factiva username, password and namespace to work correctly.  Factiva users should not share their usernames and passwords.

Will this work with academic accounts?
Academic accounts will continue to have access to the Editor's Choice folders, but in response to requests, academic accounts will not have access to the NewsGator options.

What does my IT department need to know?
Most RSS feeds are free from the web and do not require authentication to collect the headlines.  A few of these feeds contain links to articles on subscription websites, for which users need credentials.

Factiva's RSS channels will work within most RSS readers.  When clicking on the XML tile to subscribe to an Editor's Choice folder, a URL is generated which can be captured by the RSS reader.  This URL will include specific information to enables the standard re-directs to work.

Linking to the URL, either from a browser or an RSS reader, will dynamically generate the latest version of the channels headlines, in RSS format.  The article links within the RSS will also include the re-direct information and will work like a standard Factiva.com direct link.  Users clicking on a link will need to authenticate to Factiva.com to read the article, which they can do by a persistent cookie, logging on with username, namespace and password, or one of the standard re-direct methods.

At the end of the article retrieval flow, a user will end up logged on to their Factiva.com account, viewing the article which was linked in their RSS Channel.

How do I delete my cookie files?

Cookie files can contain a username and password to log you in automatically, or they can contain information about your preferences within online Web sites or products like Factiva.com. You will want to delete cookie files if:

·          the cookie file contains a username and password you do not want to use, or

·          the cookie file becomes damaged so that your preferences or web pages do not display properly.

To assist you with deleting cookie files for our products, Factiva has created Cookie Deletion links. They are available for some of our products and for the Dow Jones product, Wall Street Journal Online.

The Factiva.com Cookie Deletion links are available for each interface language, and there are secure server (https://) versions available as well.

Read the instructions below or print this page before completing the steps to delete cookies:

1.  Click the appropriate link (see your options below). Result: You will receive an OK message.

2. Close your browser.

The available Cookie Deletion links are:

Factiva.com:

English

·          https://global.factiva.com/en/sess/xsiddel.asp

·          http://global.factiva.com/en/sess/xsiddel.asp