[December 01, 2003] The Information and Content Exchange (ICE) Protocol. Working Draft Version 2.0. December 1, 2003. 154 pages. "This document describes the Information and Content Exchange protocol for use by content Syndicators and their subscribers. The ICE protocol defines the roles and responsibilities of Syndicators and Subscribers, defines the format and method of content exchange, and provides support for management and control of syndication relationships. We expect ICE to be useful in automating content exchange and reuse, both in traditional publishing contexts and in business-to-business relationships where the exchange eBusiness content must be reliably automated."

[September 20, 2001] "The ICE protocol defines the roles and responsibilities of Syndicators and subscribers, defines the format and method of content exchange, and provides support for management and control of syndication relationships. We expect ICE to be useful in automating content exchange and reuse, both in traditional publishing contexts and in business-to-business relationships... Reusing and redistributing information and content from one Web site to another is an ad hoc and expensive process. The expense derives from two different types of problem: (1) Before successfully sharing and reusing information, both ends need a common vocabulary. (2) Before successfully transferring any data and managing the relationship, both ends need a common protocol and management model. Successful content syndication requires solving both halves of this puzzle. Fortunately, industry specific efforts already exist for solving the vocabulary problems. For example, Ontology.org is an organization devoted to fostering development of industry specific XML DTDs. Other examples of this type of effort include HL7 for the health care industry, or recent W3C XML efforts for mathematics. Although many industries have yet to establish efforts in this area, more will do so as XML and the Web continue to create opportunities for economic gain via on-line applications. ICE completes the picture by providing the solution for the other half of the puzzle. Specifically, ICE manages and automates establishment of syndication relationships, data transfer, and results analysis. When combined with an industry specific vocabulary, ICE provides a complete solution for syndicating any type of information between information providers and their subscribers..." [from the version 1.1 Abstract/Introduction, 2000-05-11]

[September 20, 2001]   ICE Authoring Group Previews Information and Content Exchange Specification 2.0.    Members of the Information and Content Exchange (ICE) Authoring Group have issued an invitation to preview plans for the ICE 2.0 specification, now under design. The meeting will be held on September 26, 2001 at the Marriott Hotel near the Moscone Center, San Francisco, CA. ICE is "an XML-based communications protocol optimized for managing the regular exchange of content and data among business partners. The first version of the ICE specification was released in 1998 and has enjoyed considerable support. An updated version ICE 1.1 was also released and it too has been incorporated into products produced by companies including Vignette, Kinecta, Interwoven, Oracle, HP, and Active Data Exchange. A reference implementation toolkit for ICE called ICE CUBES is being developed on SourceForge. Some of the current plans for ICE 2.0 include: (1) Exploration of ICE-based syndication as a Web Service; (2) Integration of the latest standards such as XML Schemas, XML Namespaces, UDDI, SOAP, PRISM, and RDF; (3) Elegant metadata implementations including PRISM an RDF; (4) Well-defined protocol extension mechanism; (5) Development of a framework for a public catalog; (6) New transport layers such as HTTP/S, SMTP, NNTP, and WAP." [Full context]

[October 26, 1998] On October 26, 1998, the W3C acknowledged receipt of a submission from Adobe Systems Incorporated, CNET Incorporated, Microsoft Corporation, Sun Microsystems Inc., and Vignette Corporation, in the form of a NOTE: "The Information and Content Exchange (ICE) Protocol." References: NOTE-ice-19981026, W3C Note 26 October 1998. The editors include: Neil Webber (Vignette Corporation); Conleth O'Connell (Vignette Corporation); Bruce Hunt (Adobe Systems); Rick Levine (Sun Microsystems); Laird Popkin (News Internet Services); Gord Larose (Channelware Inc.).

The NOTE abstract: "This document describes the Information and Content Exchange protocol for use by content syndicators and their subscribers. The ICE protocol defines the roles and responsibilities of syndicators and subscribers, defines the format and method of content exchange, and provides support for management and control of syndication relationships. We expect ICE to be useful in automating content exchange and reuse, both in traditional publishing contexts and in business-to-business relationships. ICE is built as an application of XML, and also makes use of HTTP. ICE can leverage a number of other emerging W3C efforts." The ICE authoring team "has identified two areas of special interest for future work: 1) How to define a constraints mechanism that will meet the needs of ICE and possibly leverage other emerging W3C schema efforts such as XML-Data, DCD, XSchema, etc.; 2) How to define a usage data model that will allow businesses to exchange information about how the syndicated content is being used." See also the announcement and W3C Staff Comment. Communiques regarding the submission may be directed to Brad Husick (Vignette).

[Earlier descriptive information] "Firefly Network, Vignette Corporation, and other Internet leaders today [February 2, 1998] announced Information & Content Exchange (ICE), a proposed protocol designed to significantly reduce the cost of doing business online and increase the value of business relationships by facilitating the controlled exchange and management of electronic assets between networked partners and affiliates. Applications based on ICE will enable companies to easily construct syndicated publishing networks, Web superstores, and online reseller channels by establishing Web-site-to-Web-site information networks."

"The proposed ICE specification provides businesses with an XML-based common language and architecture that will facilitate the process of automatically exchanging, updating, supplying, and controlling assets in a trusted fashion (building on OPS/P3P) without manual packaging or knowledge of remote Web site structures. For consumer Web sites, end users benefit from more complete and easier to use Web destinations that reduce the frustration of having to surf through many inadequate, narrowly-focused Web sites in order to find what they need." [from the Firefly release]

Members of the ICE working group include[d] Vignette, Microsoft, Firefly, Adobe, JavaSoft, Net Perceptions, News Internet Services, C/Net, Hollinger International, National Semiconductor, Preview Travel, Tribune Media Service, Ziff-Davis, and others.

The ICE Advisory Council will review and suggest changes to the ICE Authoring Group, which is writing the requirements and specification for Information & Content Exchange. As of April 1998, "more than 40 global companies have joined the Advisory Council."

[September 07, 1998] Chad M. Williams posted an announcement to CTX for the opening of a new Web site 'Content-X.' This site is designed as "an XML-focused community forum for Internet publishers, developers and all other businesses concerned with using XML to address document management concerns. It is focused on the application of server-side XML, with an emphasis on the development of the ICE standard. XML will allow radically different platforms to exchange information in a standardized way and thereby allow ecommerce to begin to reach its real potential."

Specifications for Aggregation and Syndication

• Atom Publishing Format and Protocol
• "RSS: Rich Site Summary" | "RDF Site Summary" | "Really Simple Syndication"
• PRISM Aggregator DTD
• Open Content Syndication (OCS)
• Channel Definition Format, CDF (Based on XML)

ICE: Principal References

• ICE Web site - "Welcome to the New Information and Content Exhcange (ICE) web site. Its purpose is the rapid communication of the standards development of the ICE Authoring Group (ICE-AG)..."

• [December 01, 2003] The Information and Content Exchange (ICE) Protocol. Edited by Jay Brodsky (Tribune Media Services), Marco Carrer (Oracle Corporation), Dianne Kennedy (IDEAlliance), Daniel Koger (independent consultant), Richard Martin (Active Data Exchange), and Laird Popkin (Warner Music Group). IDEAlliance ICE Working Draft Version 2.0. December 1, 2003.

• [May 11, 2000] "The Information and Content Exchange (ICE) Protocol." AC Review Version 1.1. Revision R. ICE Network - ICE Standard Version 1.1 (Final Review Draft). Edited by Jay Brodsky (Tribune Media Services), Bruce Hunt (Adobe Systems, Inc.), Sami Khoury (What U Want, Inc.), and Laird Popkin (Sotheby's Holdings).

• ICE 1.1 Document Type Definition

• [December 09, 2003] "IDEAlliance Issues ICE 2.0 RFC at Industry News Standards Summit. Industry Strength, Web-Services Compliant Syndication Protocol Nears Final Approval." - "IDEAlliance, a leading trade association dedicated to fostering information technology standards, highlighted the new ICE 2.0 Specification and issued a Request for Comment at the News Standards Summit held in conjunction with the XML 2003 Conference and Exposition. XML 2003 is being held Dec. 7-12, 2003 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. The News Standards Summit, co-sponsored by IDEAlliance, IFRA (INCA-FIEJ Research Association), IPTC (International Press Telecommunications Council), NAA (Newspaper Association of America), and OASIS, brought together 75 major players in the news industry -- experts on news metadata standards, as well as commercial news providers and aggregators, to analyze the current state of (and future expectations for) XML-enabled news publishing efforts from both the content and processing-model perspectives. The ICE specification, originally developed in 1998 by a community of 80 content providers and software venders, provides businesses with an XML-based common language and architecture that facilitates automatic delivery, updating and managing content assets in a trusted fashion without manual packaging or knowledge of remote Web-site structures. With the development of this major revision to the ICE Specification, robust content syndication is supported in a Web Services environment for the first time. According to Dr. Richard Martin, Chairman of the ICE2 Specification Development Committee, 'For Version 2.0 of the ICE protocol, it was critical to consider integration of Web Services related standards for the ICE2 definition. Given that ICE content syndication and the Web Services standards are squarely focused on distributed computing space, the synergy between the two sets of standards should be exploited to make ICE2 more complete and easier to adopt.' Dianne Kennedy, Vice President of Publishing Technologies for IDEAlliance and Editor of the ICE 2.0 Specification, commented, 'Unlike RSS and other light-weight syndication protocols, ICE 2.0 is designed to support industrial-strength content syndication. It provides for subscription management, verification of delivery, and scheduled delivery in both push and pull modes. ICE is the protocol for syndicators who are distributing 'valued content' that generates a revenue stream or requires guaranteed delivery in a secure environment.' Development of the ICE2 specification is an open industry activity, and user participation is welcomed. The ICE Authoring Group is now seeking comments from organizations that have interest in putting the proposed ICE2 specification to use..."

• [June 06, 2002] "ICE Authoring Group Seeks Comment on ICE2 Draft Use Cases." - "IDEAlliance and the ICE (Information and Content Exchange) Authoring Group have announced an open comment period for the Draft Use Cases for ICE2 Specification. According to Dr. Richard Martin, Chairman of the ICE2 Specification Development Committee, 'For the next version of the ICE protocol, it is critical to consider integration of Web Services' related standards for the ICE2 definition. Given that syndication was one of the first XML-based web services (ICE won the Seybold Technology Trailblazer award for 1998), it only makes sense that with ICE2 the ICE Authoring Group would endorse the foundational standards that have emerged to support web services. Building on the Web Services standards will make ICE easier for learn and implement.' The ICE Authoring Group and IDEAlliance are now seeking comments or any other feedback from firms who have interest in putting the proposed ICE2 specification to use. The tentative release date for the ICE2 specification is September 2002. The deadline for comments is June 17, 2002 and additional use cases will be accepted through June 30, 2002... ICE2 identified and released a requirements document in February of 2002 which was based upon the lessons learned during the past four years of ICE implementations. With the present innovations taking place in the XML community, the ICE Authoring Group has reviewed and is refining ICE to meet the growing demands of businesses. The goal is to express the ICE2 content syndication standard as a Web Service. This first major revision of the ICE Specification focuses on compatibility with the three major Web Services Standards -- WSDL, SOAP and UDDI... ICE (Information and Content Exchange) is a key industry initiative hosted by IDEAlliance and sponsored by a group of companies who have a common interest in solving the problem of automating and managing the exchange of every type of content. The group consists of software developers and companies who distribute or consume content, whether commercially or within intranet and extranet frameworks. The ICE standard reduces the cost of doing business online and increases the value of B2B relationships. ICE facilitates the controlled exchange and management of electronic assets between networked partners and affiliates. Applications based on ICE allow companies to easily construct syndicated publishing networks, Web superstores, and online reseller channels by establishing Web site-to-Web site information networks. The ICE Authoring Group is open to all companies and include companies such as Adobe Systems, Vignette, Active Data Exchange, Oracle, and Tribune Media Services..."

• [February 20, 2002] "ICE Authoring Group Releases Draft Requirements for Industry Comment. ICE2 Moves Content Syndication into Web Services Environment." - "IDEAlliance and the ICE (Information and Content Exchange) Authoring Group have announced that the Draft Requirements for ICE2 Specification will be released to the public on February 21, 2002. The release will take place during the XML and Publishing Hot Technology Day of the Seybold Conference and Exposition in New York City. According to Dr. Richard Martin, Chairman of the ICE2 Specification Development Committee, 'For the next version of the ICE protocol, it is critical to consider integration of Web Services' related standards for the ICE2 definition. Given that ICE content syndication and the Web Services standards are squarely focused on distributed computing space, the synergy between the two sets of standards should be exploited to make ICE2 more complete and easier to adopt.' The ICE Authoring Group has initially identified 15 draft requirements that identify the lessons learned during the past four years of ICE implementations, coupled with continued innovations in the XML community, to review and refine ICE to meet the growing demands of business. The goal is to express the ICE content syndication standard as a Web Service. This first major revision of the ICE Specification will focus on compatibility with the three major Web Services Standards -- WSDL, SOAP and UDDI. In addition to the exciting new technical work being undertaken by the ICE Authoring Group, the shift toward opening the technical work to industry involvement is another major milestone for the ICE Authoring Group. According to David Steinhardt, President and CEO of IDEAlliance, 'ICE1 was developed by the activity sponsors, who held a vested interest in solving the problem of automating and managing content exchange. Today, four years later, the environment has changed dramatically. We are opening the technical development and seek input from the entire industry to ensure that ICE2 meets the requirements of a broader community.' Development of the ICE2 specification is an open industry activity. Anyone interested in participation can begin by reviewing the Draft Requirements Document at www.icestandard.org. Comments relating to the ICE2 Specification Draft Requirements are due back to the ICE-AG by March 8, 2002.

• [December 04, 2001]   IDEAlliance Working Group Begins Development of Information and Content Exchange (ICE) Version 2.0.    IDEAlliance has issued a public invitation for participation in the development of 'ICE2' as an open source standard for digital asset exchange. Building upon ICE version 1.1 of August 1999, ICE2 is being designed as an enhanced "layered protocol for establishing and managing controlled data exchange between business partners. ICE 1.1 provided key functions such as: standardizing the management of subscriptions; automation of content delivery; communication of metadata relevant to syndication, such as usage constraints, IP status, reuse, business terms, ownership and release/expiration dates; automation of operational issues, including error messaging, logging, delivery and notification. Tasks identified for work in the development of ICE2 include: (1) Integration of the latest standards such as XML Schemas and Namespaces; (2) Expression of ICE as a Web Service [UDDI, SOAP, WSDL]; (3) Enhanced implementation of metadata tags [PRISM and RDF]; (4) Design of a well-defined protocol extension mechanism; (5) Support for negotiation of non-ice delivery, such as FTP and simple 'GET' mechanism; (6) Support for the concurrent syndicator/subscriber; (7) Multi-level distribution; (8) Development of a framework for a public catalog." [Full context]

• [November 28, 2000] "ICE Implementation Cookbook: Getting Started with Web Syndication." Information and Content Exchange. From Members of the ICE Authoring Group: Adam Souzis, Laird Popkin, Sami Khoury, and Bruce Hunt. November 28, 2000. "This is a collection of recipes for implementing ICE in a step-by-step manner. The ICE specification consists of over one hundred pages describing the ICE protocol. When you read the specification it is difficult to know where to begin an ICE implementation. This cook book, on the other hand, is designed to give you a step-by-step set of recipes for implementing ICE. It starts with a minimum protocol subset that is not ICE compliant, but it works and will enable you to begin syndicating content. Each following recipe builds on the previous one to add additional capabilities until a minimal, conforming ICE implementation is achieved. Thus, this document provides a road map for implementing ICE... The recipes included in this cookbook start with the simplest of all solutions and build on each other so that each succeeding recipe further adds to the resulting ICE implementation. Although the resulting solutions are not 100% ICE compliant, this practical approach to building ICE functionality over time is well proven in the marketplace. The objective is start with the minimal working protocol using ICE constructs and add capability until a minimum ICE compliant implementation is achieved. This implementation cookbook is a way to provide the Web community with a set of practical implementation steps that both get the job done quickly and efficiently as well as providing a path so that your near term investment in building an easy solution assists the longer term goal of full inter-operability with commercial ICE implementations..." [cache]

• ICE Authoring Group

• ICE Network

• ICE Cubes Project. SourceForge ICE Protocol Reference Java Code - Summary. "Java Implementation of ICE 1.1 Protocol. IceCubes is an Open Source Java Implementation of the Information & Content Exchange (ICE) Protocol Version 1.1. It is being developed and led by the ICE authoring group, the people who wrote the ICE specifications... ICE cubes(tm) is a set of java class libraries that implement the ICE 1.1 specification. Applications manage ICE cubes using a configuration file that defines the policies for the operational behavior of the protocol. ICE cubes takes on the role of syndicator or subscriber as a matter of policy. In addition, standard APIs (interfaces) are provided to setup and manage collections, subscribers, syndicators, catalogs, offers, negotiation and policies. ICE cubes is policy driven in the sense that almost all of the core decision algorithms and parameters are set by policies defined by the application developer in the configuration file; or dynamically through the policy API. Default policy implementations are provided so that most implementations will need to adjust only a few parameters to get the system up and running. As an applications solution requirements grow, specific policies can be updated. ICE cubes provides an ICE implementation framework that can be extended in a large variety of ways to attack many application specific syndication problems. ICE cubes is designed to be highly scalable in performance and the number of subscribers, syndicators, subscriptions, catalogs, and collections it can manage. The goal of this implementation is to be able to effectively support tens of thousands of subscriptions and subscribers; thousands of syndicators and thousands of collections... ICE cubes and it's associated validation test suites are open source, written in Java and are available under the LGPL license. The ICE authoring group used the LGPL license to encourage continuing enhancement of ICE cubes." See the summary article. [cache version 0.5 == icecubes0_5]

• [May 11, 2001] "ICE Keeps Data Fresh. Protocol for content exchange catches on slowly." By Chuck Moozakis. In InternetWeek (May 07, 2001), pages 17-18. ['ICE addresses the thorny issue of how a content provider manages the flow of information sent to users -- ensuring that the freshest information is sent to the correct audience at the right time.'] "German software maker Intershop was looking to pump up its Enfinity catalog content e-commerce application back in 1999, and was seeking a technology that would ensure that the right data was being pushed to the right audience. [CTO] Bassiri could have assigned Intershop's programmers the arduous task of writing code to support the management of supplier data. Instead, he was able to avoid that task by building Enfinity around the Information and Content Exchange protocol, a standard developed to help content providers direct information to a wide variety of users. 'No other standard addresses this area directly,' Bassiri said about ICE, an XML-based protocol developed in late 1998 to help companies route their content to disparate audiences. 'Without it we would have to write our own code, and that code would only be specific to a certain type of content.' In a nutshell, ICE addresses the thorny issue of how a content provider manages the flow of information sent to users--ensuring that the freshest information is sent to the correct audience at the right time. The standard also lets companies code their content so that it's sent to user sites during times when bandwidth is most prevalent -- for example, in the middle of the night--to avoid backbone bottlenecks. Dianne Kennedy, founder of consultancy XMLXperts, describes ICE as the 'data pump used to make sure content is where it needs to be when it needs to be there.' The protocol's great value is based on three primary attributes, according to ICE proponents. The first is that it lets users tag ICE-encoded information with effective dates and expiration dates. This means that content can be sent to users early and marked with the date on which it can be redistributed to users' customers. Similarly, ICE lets information be marked as "valid" only up until a specified expiration date. A second ICE attribute is that it lets users integrate their own syndicated content with a customer's existing information. Tribune Media Services, for example, is evaluating ICE to permit the syndicator of newspaper content to mesh its cartoon and entertainment information with news packages created by its member newspapers. A third important attribute of ICE, supporters say, is that the protocol supports a wide variety of delivery guarantees, assuring syndicators that content was delivered as promised. In this case, a company could be notified if critical content it's providing hasn't been delivered. For less time-sensitive information, however, that same company might choose not to be notified if its content has been delayed... Despite all of ICE's potential benefits, backers conceded adoption has been slower than many would have liked..." In the same article: "ICE Explained".

• [December 05, 2000] "Kinecta Announces First Free Internet Application For Business-to-Business Syndication. XML/ICE-Based Tool Automates Distribution of Business-Critical Content." - "Kinecta Corporation, the global leader in content syndication and aggregation infrastructure solutions, announced plans to deliver the industry's first free content distribution tool, Kinecta Syndicator Lite. Kinecta Syndicator Lite, based on the ICE (Information and Content Exchange) standard, offers businesses two important benefits: automation and flexibility. It enables organizations to set up open, dedicated channels for automating ongoing business-to-business content delivery instead of relying on manually intensive and error prone methods such as e-mail or FTP (file transfer protocol). It also avoids unscalable and inflexible click-back methods such as linking and framing. Kinecta Syndicator Lite also manages delivery of multiple content types, formats, content sources and delivery frequencies. Kinecta Syndicator Lite, based on the company's industry-leading Kinecta Interact syndication platform, is the industry's first free ICE-based application. Like Kinecta Interact, Syndicator Lite automates the distribution of any type of digital asset in a wide range of file formats, including XML, HTML, text, PDF, graphics, audio, video and streaming media. The new application is designed to benefit system administrators, developers, and other information professionals requiring a standards-based solution for the automated delivery of information and content to employees, partners, suppliers and customers. Kinecta Syndicator Lite allows companies to establish various syndication business processes, including the ongoing distribution of content such as financial data, manufacturing drawings, product catalogs or inventory data to partners or suppliers; the distribution of industry news to partner sites to increase site traffic and extend brand; or the automated aggregation of content from multiple partners into a single system, intranet or extranet. Users can download the Kinecta Syndicator Lite Java-based server application, and then authorize a limited number of partners to distribute content to. The scope of the application makes it an ideal solution for small syndication networks or for larger organizations wanting to start out using a proven ICE-based content delivery solution on a smaller scale. Businesses that need access to more advanced functionality and support for larger distribution networks can easily upgrade to the enterprise-class Kinecta Interact syndication platform... ICE is an XML-based communications protocol that is the industry standard for syndication. It automates the business rules needed to distribute content reliably within or between organizations. By standardizing content exchange, solutions based on ICE reduce the effort and cost of creating and operating online content distribution networks, and increase the value of business alliances."

• [April 17, 2000] "Content Publishers Push for Metadata Standard." By Paula Jacobs. In InternetWeek Issue 808 (April 10, 2000). "It's been more than a year since the formal introduction of the Information & Content Exchange specification, a collaborative effort of more than 80 companies to define an XML syntax for content syndication across the Web. ICE lets publishers determine the content sent to Web sites, set a schedule for transmissions, customize content selection for each site and automatically reformat the content according to customer requirements, such as adding company logos and changing links. The ICE 1.0 specification was written by Adobe Systems, CNET, Microsoft, National Semiconductor, News Internet Services, Sun Microsystems, Tribune Media Services and Vignette. Still, the lack of a standard metadata vocabulary is hindering efforts to move forward with content syndication, say industry experts. The industry needs a standard because content that formerly remained with a single publisher now must be aggregated and syndicated so it can be reused. . . To accelerate the standardization effort and create a standard metadata vocabulary, content providers and tool vendors have joined the Publishing Requirements for Industry Standard Metadata (PRISM) working group, which hopes to make a draft specification available in June. PRISM is also working with the International Press and Telegraph Group to develop an interoperable collaborative on metadata for content, such as magazines, catalogs and books."

• [November 20, 2001] "Syndication, Actionable Content, and the Supply Chain." By Bill Trippe and David R. Guenette. In The Gilbane Report on Open Information & Document Systems Volume 8, Number 7 (August/September 2000). "It has been well over a year since we have had anything to say about syndication beyond reporting a few news items. Like Digital Rights Management (DRM - our topic last month), syndication over the Internet has had trouble getting any serious traction in the market. But, while significant technical and user-interface challenges have hindered the adoption of DRM, the problem with syndication has had more to do with either a lack of imagination (in many cases) or with a more pressing need to get basic content management capabilities in place (in most cases). It is also true that 'syndication' still suggests newspaper columns more than the Internet, Java Beans, or metadata to most people. This is changing. More and more we are seeing business managers thinking of all kinds of enhanced business models or new business opportunities that are, in fact, straightforward syndication applications, although they might not think of them that way. We think 'syndication' is a useful term -- it refers to a well known model, and has a simple clarity all too often lacking in marketing or IT-speak (equally exasperating languages!). This month Bill and David team up to provide a simple introduction to syndication and to explain why it is central to a wide variety of applications in both B2B and B2C environments. Syndication is surely a topic we will be coming back to. There are many questions about proposed syndication standards and where syndication functionality best fits in architectures. For example, should syndication be considered a content management function? Or is that too limiting? [...] Both ICE and RSS use XML, so the syndicated content is at least well-formed, self-describing data. As such, both formats give implementers a clear target. They know what's coming in, how much is there, and what it will look like. Even with the recent extensions to ICE, and despite some complaints that ICE is complex, parsing ICE data is not a massive undertaking. (The ICE authoring group recently developed an ICE 'cookbook' breaking down the tasks, and they will soon be providing an open source reference implementation.) And RSS is even simpler, easily handled with tools like perl or JavaScript. This leaves implementers free to spend their time on other problems, opening up the possibilities to bring streaming media, business logic, and application integration into the mix. One of ICE's oft-cited weaknesses, interestingly, may end up being its strength in this regard. As specified, the ICE container can include any kind of data -- a perceived problem for some. But this also means implementers can put just about anything into the ICE container. In addition to the syndicated content, the container could include messages for other receiving systems, such as back office applications, ERP systems, and more... Syndication is clearly something to pay attention to. Whether you completely buy Werbach's assessment, syndication is indeed a compelling new model for business. It applies to companies in all markets, making all kinds of products. And if it doesn't apply to all of your business, it applies to a good percentage of it. Business managers and IT should collaborate on infrastructure and application requirements. Collaboration is especially critical when 'content' includes code and application services. ICE, RSS or other industry XML DTDs should be used if they work for your needs, otherwise build your own. But keep it a simple XML application -- this is not an overly complex project. The ICE Cookbook could be a good starting point for your IT organization. They can prototype applications quickly, and begin working with deployed XML shortly thereafter. Use your imagination about possible new ways to improve supply chain service and efficiency and new business models for B2B and B2C environments. Imagine the idea five years ago of www.myaircraft.com for ordering airplane parts. It would have sounded preposterous, and now here it is. Expect to see 'syndication' mature to buzzword status, but don't let that blind you to the possibilities. The idea of syndication as the creation and distribution of distinct products may simply reflect an incomplete conceptual transition from print to digital. Yes, electronic content may be easily searched, accessed across networks, updated as needed, controlled for security and access, and otherwise be more efficient and useful and less costly than older print models of supplying information. But efforts to deliver actionable content from its various sources to partner enterprises within the supply chain holds greater promise yet for syndication."

• W3C NOTE: "The Information and Content Exchange (ICE) Protocol." References: NOTE-ice-19981026, W3C Note 26 October 1998. Also: the announcement and W3C Staff Comment. Local archive copy: NOTE; announcement; W3C comment].

• [November 18, 1999] "Self-Service Syndication with ICE. Building Informative Web Pages and Catalogs Automatically." By Dan Greening (Andromedia). In WebTechniques Volume 4, Issue 11 (November 1999), pages 57-63. ['While traditional customer support is mostly reactive, another model is emerging for moving content around the Web. Based on XML, the Information and Content Exchange (ICE) protocol provides structure to streams. Dan explains what this means for syndication, and how Andromedia is using the protocol to simplify some of its programming tasks.'] "Newspapers, product retailers, and Web portals face a common problem: How can they provide the most up-to-date content? They can invest in developing their own original content, as does Web Techniques magazine, or they can assemble material from several outside sources and rebrand it under their own name. [But] without a standard protocol, syndication doesn't scale very well on the Web... To address these problems, a consortium of application server and content companies, led by Vignette, created a standard syndication protocol based on XML -- Information and Content Exchange (ICE). XML is a simple standard to represent data-hierarchies using familiar HTML-style tags. The syndicate/subscribe model ICE defines is almost the same as what computer scientists call "publish/subscribe." And it turns out that ICE is most similar to binary publish/subscribe protocol standards, such as CORBA and DCOM. But in ICE, messages are delivered through XML, typically delivered over an HTTP connection, as opposed to a lower-level binary protocol. ICE is much easier to read and use, but it is also much more verbose. If you're constrained by network bandwidth, either compress the ICE packets or use something else. Finally, ICE defines many typical syndication operations and constraints that CORBA and DCOM leave to vertical industry implementations... The ICE protocol defines a set of request-response pairs coded in XML. The ICE standard doesn't specify the underlying transfer protocol, but does suggest an implementation using the HTTP POST/response mechanism called "ICE/HTTP". The body of the HTTP POST contains the ice-request, and its associated HTTP response contains the ICE response. As far as I know, all current ICE implementations use ICE/HTTP. This article assumes ICE/HTTP is the transport."

• "RSS in ICE." By Laird Popkin (CTO of 3Path, Inc.; Chairman of the ICE Authoring Group). May 31, 2000 or later. "This document is a follow-up to the discussion thread on the xml-dist-app list between Laird Popkin and David Winer. [It supplies] a brief comparison of the goals and functionality of RSS and ICE [and outlines RSS functionality within ICE] ... Comparison of RSS and ICE, and proposal on how to merge RSS' functionality into ICE. Note that purely duplicating RSS' functionality spelled in terms of ICE may not be the appropriate means of merging the standards, but this should at the least serve as an interesting experiment in comparing the protocols. In addition, the comparison to RSS reminds me of one of ICE's original requirements, to allow a syndicator that simply delivers static files to be a useful, valuable subset of ICE's functionality. This scenario has not been at the top of the ICE AG's priority list, so this exercise serves as a good reminder to the ICE AG, at the very least. The widespread adoption of RSS by low-end syndicators to distribute promotional links should serve as a clear indicator of the importance of this scenario in the world of syndication... Recognizing that there is significant value in a single syndication standard that encompasses the full range of online content syndication, I propose a 'straw man' proposal for expressing RSS functionality within ICE, including modifications to the ICE protocol to support identical behavior as RSS. I do not expect that this proposal would be adopted as is, but would like to use it as a starting point for an exploration of unifying the two standards..." [cache, alt URL]

• [February 15, 2000] "Kinecta Corporation Announces Kinecta Interact. World-Class XML Platform Targets Business-to-Business Information Partnerships." - "Kinecta Corporation, a global leader in Distributed Information Management, today introduced Kinecta Interact, the company's core platform designed to enable businesses to automatically exchange, manage and transform distributed information. Kinecta Interact is the leading Distributed Information Management platform, which consists of the high-performance Kinecta Interact Server and Kinecta Interact Subscriber (upgraded versions of the company's ShiftKey Syndication Server and SiClone Subscriber, respectively). Kinecta Interact version 3.0 includes a new user interface (UI) and several new features that enhance and extend the capabilities of the platform. The company's innovative Java-based, ICE- (Information and Content Exchange) compliant Kinecta Interact platform enables customers to seamlessly manage thousands of unique information relationships between any number of subscribers. An application of XML (Extensible Markup Language), ICE provides a common format for the automatic, controlled exchange and management of online information. Kinecta Interact is based on the ICE standard to enable companies of all sizes and industries to leverage the enormous collection of relevant information on the Internet, and to facilitate the automatic establishment of business-to-business value chains. Information providers can leverage Kinecta Interact as a standards-based platform to exchange multiple data types, while maintaining existing branding and protecting data privacy. Kinecta Interact automates the distribution of digital information, including HTML, XML, graphical files, database records, streaming media and most document types. The system further facilitates the integration of that information into a Web site, content repository, business process or Internet appliance. The graphical elements of the information can be transformed, allowing publishers to maintain various rights related to the content, including branding/look and feel and subscriber content usage reporting." See also the 05/00 press release.

• [June 21, 1999] "Industry Analysts Evaluate ICE." By Dianne Kennedy. In XML Files: The XML Magazine Issue 15 (June, 1999). - "ICE Executive Summit: GCARI and the ICE Authoring Group held the first of the ICE Summit in New York at the Marriott Eastside on May 17. The two day business and technical summit was attended by 60 leading executives representing publishers and others interested in making the shift to doing business on the Web. The opening keynote presentation was provided by Don DePalma from Sensible Systems (formerly from Forrester Group). Don provided the group with a brief introduction to ICE and the business rationale for this specification. . . GCARI and the ICE Authoring Group will be holding the second in a series of ICE Executive Summits at the Drake Hotel in Chicago on July 11 and July 12. You can find more information and register for this summit online.

• [June 09, 1999] "ICE News: Protocol Updated, Author Group Expands, New Seminars Planned." - "he Information and Content Exchange (ICE) Protocol Authoring Group, creators of the specification for syndicating content on the World Wide Web, released a new editorial update of its award-winning standard. ICE also announced two new companies joining the authoring group, Reuters New Media Inc. and ShiftKey Inc., and its next two ICE Summit seminars. The ICE authoring group approved the updated protocol and addition of the two new companies at its May 1999 meeting. ICE, a special membership organization of Graphic Communications Association (GCA) Research Institute, now has 10 companies in its authoring group. Laird Popkin, chief technical officer of Sothebys.Com and chair of the ICE authoring group said, 'The May revision tightens the language in ICE and improves consistency between the document type definition (DTD) -- the core of the specification -- and various examples presented in the text.' Popkin added, 'The update makes no changes in the DTD however, so the standard remains completely stable from before'." [local archive copy]

• [May 07, 1999] "GCA's Research Institute and ICE Form Partnership to Further Content Exchange Standards and Applications." - "The Graphic Communications Association Research Institute, Inc. (GCARI) and the Information and Content Exchange Authoring Group (ICE AG) recently announced a letter of understanding between the two organizations in which GCARI is named as the official host organization for the ICE AG. GCARI has entered into this relationship to fulfill its ongoing mission of promoting standards for use in fields of information technology and publishing. Under this agreement, all members of ICE Authoring Group as well as the ICE Advisory Council shall become members of the ICE special membership group of GCARI. The new host organization will host the ICE web site as well as upcoming ICE standards activities." [local archive copy]

• [May 07, 1999] What is ICE? - "Information & Content Exchange (ICE) will Enable Companies to Build Online Networked Relationships Such as Syndicated Publishing Networks, Web Superstores, and Online Reseller Channels." From GCARI. April 22, 1999. [local archive copy]

• [April 15, 1999] "GCARI is New Host for ICE." By Dianne Kennedy. In XML Files: The XML Magazine Issue 13 (March 31, 1999). "During the recent XTech Conference in San Jose, Graphic Communications Association Research Institute, Inc. (GCARI) and the Information and Content Exchange (ICE) Authoring Group jointly announced a letter of understanding between the two organizations in which GCARI is named as the official Host organization for the ICE Authoring Group. GCARI has entered into this relationship to fulfill its ongoing mission of promoting standards for use in fields of information technology and publishing. Under this agreement, all members of ICE Authoring Group (ICE AG) and Advisory Council (ICE AC) also shall become Special Membership Group (SMG) members of GCARI."

• [April 16, 1999] "Whither ICE?" By Bill Trippe. In The Gilbane Report on Open Information & Document Systems Volume 7, Number 2 (February 1999), pages 5-8. In the special issue 'Metadata, ICE & New Horizons'. "The Information and Content Exchange (ICE) protocol was first conceived a year ago, so it's a good time to visit the initiative and see whether it still has the impressive momentum it seemed to develop right from the start. . . Bill Trippe, joins [the Gilbane Report editorial staff] this month with an update on one of the most well known XML metadata applications, ICE (Information & Content Exchange) protocol. This is one of the (many) areas Bill knows a lot about. How important is ICE to you? The answer depends partly on what the final scope of the protocol is, and that is still an open question. In any case, the issues it addresses will be relevant to any web application that involves sharing content with business partners. You should be aware of it."

• [March 15, 1999] "ICE (Information & Content Exchange) Standard Heralded as 'Technology Trailblazer' in Field of Web Publishing by Seybold Editors' Awards. XML-Based Protocol Praised as a 'Significant Step Forward for Those Trying To Automate the Distribution of Content on the Web.'" - "The ICE Authoring Group today announced that ICE (Information & Content Exchange) has won a Seybold Editor's Award in the field of Web publishing. Announced in March 1999, the 1998 Seybold Editor's Awards recognize products, technologies and companies that have already made a notable impact, or are likely to have a substantial effect, on the future of online and print publishing. ICE is designed to significantly reduce the cost of online business by providing the standard to build Internet value or trading networks, such as syndicated publishing networks, Web superstores and online reseller channels."

• Information & Content Exchange - Overview

• [October 27, 1998] "ICE 1.0, World's First Protocol for XML-based Content Syndication Specification Completed. More than 80 Leading Internet Companies Agree on Standard to Extend Customer Reach and Lower Costs for Building Internet Value Networks." Also from Vignette.

• What is ICE? from XMLXperts

• Press release from Vignette Corporation - February 1998.

• ICE FAQ document; [local archive copy]

• [October 09, 1998] "ICE 1.0 Summit to Unveil Complete ICE Specification, Showcase the Future of Web Business. Vignette, CNET, Sun, National Semiconductor, News Internet Services, Among Companies to Discuss Building Internet Value Networks." - "The event will highlight the impact that ICE, one of the first practical business applications of XML, will have in creating the next generation of commercial Web applications, syndicated publishing networks, Web superstores, and online reseller channels, that are designed to dramatically reduce the costs of doing business online." [local archive copy]

• [April 05, 1999] "NatSemi Site Lets Customers Choose." By David Joachim. In InternetWeek (March 22, 1999). "National Semiconductor earlier this month launched an e-commerce site that lets customers track live inventory data and order online. National gives customers the option to order directly from the manufacturer or from one of six distribution partners. At the heart of the site (buy.national.com) is the Information and Content Exchange (ICE) protocol, which lets the company publish catalog updates to distributors in real time." See "Information and Content Exchange (ICE) Protocol."

• [March 16, 1999] "Andromedia Advances State of E-Marketing. Company delivers Smart eMarketing Platform combining its award-winning ARIA Web Site Activity Analysis software and market-leading LikeMinds Personalization Server." - "Specifically, Andromedia is announcing four new products, a strategic relationship with BroadVision, support for the Information and Content Exchange (ICE) protocol, and partnerships with leading e-commerce platform vendors. . . Andromedia has embraced the ICE (Information and Content Exchange) protocol and will introduce the ARIA Event Syndicator Module to make ARIA's high-value, realtime data available to third-party applications. The ICE specification describes a protocol for syndicating content. More generally, it describes a means for applications to publish and subscribe to well-formed data messages."

• [November 04, 1998] "The ICE Protocol: Automating the Exchange of Syndicated Content." By Victor Votsch. In The Seybold Report on Internet Publishing Volume 3, Number 3. Excerpt: "The ICE specification is concerned with content distribution based on business rules. These rules govern the day-to-day distribution and manipulation of content, as well as how it is handled on a site. ICE-based systems will manage and automate syndication relationships, data transfer and results analysis. Combining industry-specific vocabularies and business logic, ICE promises to be the basis for complete solutions for content partners interested in syndicating any type of information. The ICE group expects that vertical industries will create XML DTDs that contain the vocabulary specific to their businesses. Already there are a number of efforts to establish industry-specific DTDs that provide common vocabularies for data and document exchange: Rosetta.net, Ontology.org, and CommerceNet are all promoting targeted vocabularies in industries such as aerospace, electronics and health care. The ICE spec can take advantage of any existing or emerging DTDs; the protocol itself is indifferent to the format of the content."

• "Breaking Through the ICE." By Chris Oakes. In Wired News (October 6, 1998). "On Monday [October 5, 1998], the Information and Content Exchange authoring group, spearheaded by Vignette, a Web publishing-tools company, released the first draft of the specification for review by ICE's advisory council. In addition to Vignette, the authoring group includes Adobe, Firefly, JavaSoft, Microsoft, National Semiconductor, CNET, Hollinger International, News Internet Services, Preview Travel, Tribune Media Services, and ZD Net."

• "Inso Unveils the First Commercially Available ICE Application at CNET's Web.Builder Conference. The DynaBase Command Line Interface Leverages Inso's XML Expertise to Provide Controlled Exchange and Management of Online Assets Between Web Servers Today."

• [September 01, 1999] "MarketWatch.com Expands Reach Through Content Deal with iSyndicate." - "MarketWatch.com, a leading web-based financial news provider, today announced a strategic relationship with iSyndicate, a premier content syndication service on the Internet. MarketWatch.com expects to increase its audience by offering breaking business and financial news through iSyndicate's considerable network, which provides updated content to thousands of websites. CBS MarketWatch.com headlines, which link back to stories on the CBS MarketWatch.com site, will be distributed by iSyndicate through various partners within its network. iSyndicate, the Internet Content Marketplace, is the leading provider of dynamic and relevant Web content designed to help drive commerce and build community on the Internet. Today, the company aggregates, packages, integrates and delivers a breadth of content including audio, video, animations, interactive games, comics and weather from more than 500 trusted sources including Reuters NewMedia, Time, Salon, Fortune, CNET, The Associated Press, Rolling Stone and CBS Sportsline, all in real-time. This content is delivered by iSyndicate to more than 100,000 affiliated web sites, including GeoCities, Xoom.com, Citibank, Netscape, Clairol, PeopleSoft, Nintendo, Nortel and NationsBank. iSyndicate supports a wide variety of formats including the ICE (Information & Content Exchange) standard based on XML for all of its content."

• DynaBase ICE Frequently Asked Questions

• [April 13 1998] "Vignette Corporation Announces ICE Advisory Council. More Than 40 Global Companies Join." - "Based on XML, the ICE specification will enable companies to build online networked relationships such as syndicated publishing networks, Web superstores, and online reseller channels. . ."

• [February 02, 1998] Vignette Announces Roadmap to Enable Service-based Web Commerce and Unveils Integrated XML Services

• [February 02, 1998] Press release from Firefly: Leading Companies to Propose Web Standard to Facilitate Business-to-Business Electronic Asset Exchange. Information & Content Exchange (ICE) will enable companies to build online networked relationships such as syndicated publishing networks, Web superstores, and online reseller channels.

• [February 02, 1998] "Software to Help Net Stores." By Tim Clark. In CNET News.Com January 29, 1998, 4:45 p.m. PT.

• [February 06, 1998] "Microsoft Joins Group Seeking XML-based Web Content Specification." By Dana Gardner. In InfoWorld Electric Posted at 5:48 PM PT, February 5, 1998, or in InfoWorld Volume 20 Issue 6 (February 9, 1998) page 3. See alternately: "Microsoft Joins ICE Authoring Group," by Brian Hannon and Jim Kerstetter, PC Week Onlineby 02.06.98 12:58 pm ET.

Address:

Melissa Sheridan
Blanc & Otus
Tel: +1 415.512.0500
Email: msheridan@bando.com