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The ICE 1.0 Protocol:
Internet Content Syndication Standards and Opportunities

Fastwater Rapids vol. 1.9, 5Nov98

by Lee Fife
 
Internet content syndication was in the news again this last week with a flurry of announcements related to the ICE protocol. ICE, standing for Information and Content Exchange, is a protocol defining a set of messages that can be used to manage syndication relationships and the replication and exchange of content between a syndicator and its subscribers.

At first glance, it seems that a new protocol, and particularly a new protocol for syndication, shouldn't matter very much unless you're already in the syndication business. But, we believe that syndication will be increasingly important to all kinds of web businesses. Syndication technologies will find many uses, including support for traditional syndication of news and entertainment content but also extending to new uses as businesses adapt to the network economy.

The Announcements

On Tuesday, October 27^th, version 1.0 of the ICE protocol specification was officially released. The specification was authored by a group led by Vignette Corporation and including Adobe Systems Inc., Channelware, CNET, Hollinger International, Microsoft, National Semiconductor, Net Perceptions, News Internet Services, Preview Travel, Sun Microsystems, Tribune Media Services, and Ziff-Davis. This protocol was defined on Internet time: the authoring group was formed in February of this year and serious work began in April. Wrapping up a specification of this magnitude in well under a year  is an impressive achievement. (The protocol specification is available online. )

The important question about any effort like this is whether it will become real: will products actually support the specification, is it anything more than a proprietary effort from a handful of vendors, and will users adopt it? At the ICE Summit, as the launch event was styled, we saw preliminary indications that the protocol will receive vendor support. Vignette announced a new product, called the Vignette Syndication Server, that will support the protocol. News Internet Services demonstrated a product and service called C/3, for "Content, Community and Commerce", that is currently under development. C/3 will be used to syndicate Newscorp content and is planned for release in the first quarter of 1999. And shortly after the Summit, a third vendor, ShiftKey, announced the availability of a technology preview of a product termed SiClone containing support for the protocol.

Then on Monday, November 2^nd, the question of standardization was addressed when the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) announced that it had accepted the ICE 1.0 specification as a proposed standard. This means the W3C will investigate and possibly use the submitted specification as the basis for a future standard. The W3C moves quickly. If it chooses to use the submittal as a basis for work, we should see activity around ICE within the next several months. If adopted, we would expect official W3C blessing sometime next year.

This leaves the final question of whether users will adopt the protocol and associated tools. To understand why businesses should be interested in ICE, let's take a look at how the protocol works and then at some of the ways you might use it.

ICE Fundamentals

There are several aspects of content syndication that make this problem harder than simple replication from the syndicator to its subscribers. These include:

• Management of effectivity and expiration dates. Effectivity covers the situation where content is distributed to subscribers before those subscribers are able to use and distribute that content. For example, press releases might by sent out to subscribers the night before the official release date, but those subscribers aren't allowed to make the releases available on their websites until the effectivity date. Similarly, content may be marked as  valid only to a specified expiration date. After that date, subscribers should no longer distribute the content, even if it remains on their systems.

 
• Integration of syndicated content with subscriber content. In many instances, subscribers want to incorporate content of their own together with the syndicated content. For example, a subscriber may want to apply its own branding by including its logo and banners together with the syndicated content. Or a subscriber may want to create a website that seamlessly mixes content from multiple syndicators together with content generated by the subscriber. As Jay Brodsky of Tribune Media Services described this, applying simplistic website replication tools to syndication can result in a situation analogous to telling a newspaper publisher, "Here are the cartoons that Tribune syndicates. But you have to put them on a page all by themselves. You can't include cartoons you get from anyone else on that page."

 
• Mix of delivery guarantees. Syndication needs to support a wide variety of guarantees about whether the content is successfully delivered. For example, consider a news service that distributes news stories every hour and headlines for breaking news every 15 minutes. A site that subscribes to this service could  want assurances that the hourly news stories will be successfully delivered or it will receive notification of failure. But, if there were occasional problems with the 15 minute headline updates, the site could choose to just accept those failures. Those headlines will be updated anyway in another 15 minutes.

 
• Mix of delivery techniques. In order for a syndication protocol to scale over the whole range of possible syndication relationships, it needs to support a variety of delivery techniques. Some subscriber sites will be online constantly and will be willing to run servers on their sites that can accept content delivery at any time. Other sites will only be willing to accept content delivery at specified times, e.g. during the night when other activities aren't taking place. And other sites will need to poll the syndicator site for new content, being unable or unwilling to accept the syndicator pushing content at the site.

First, ICE defines a standard set of messages that a syndicator and its subscribers exchange. The messages themselves are encoded using XML. The ICE standard consists of definitions of these messages and descriptions of their meanings.

Any syndication relationship begins with a business agreement. The potential subscriber and the syndicator agree on terms describing payment, usage rights, and subscription lifetime. This business agreement happens outside ICE and typically involves person-to-person agreements and discussion, legal review, and signing of contracts.

Once the business agreement is in place, the subscriber and syndicator need to create an ICE subscription. This involves negotiation about the mechanics of the subscription: when is content  delivered, what delivery guarantees are made, whether delivery is done via push or pull, and so forth. The syndicator posts a catalog on its website containing a set of offers describing the various available options for subscription mechanics. The subscriber accesses the catalog with an ICE tool and chooses an appropriate offer. This choice may include some negotiation. E.g. the offer may suggest delivery at midnight, the subscriber may counter offer suggesting delivery at 12:30 AM, the syndicator may again counter offer suggesting delivery at 12:15 AM. This entire process takes place by exchanging a set of XML-encoded ICE messages. We've provided an illustration of subscription setup. (Click repeatedly to see the messages exchanged during negotiation of subscription mechanics.)

Once the subscription is set up, the subscriber is ready to receive content. Again, this is implemented via exchange of XML-encoded messages. The subscriber starts by asking for new content. The syndicator responds with a message describing the changes to the content in the subscription. These changes can include new content and can also include requests to delete existing content. In this way, the syndicator can control the precise content for that subscription on the subscriber's site. Together with the actual content, the message specify other ICE properties such as effective date and expiration date. We've provided an illustration of managing subscription content. (Click repeatedly to see the messages exchanged to manage content.)

Syndication Opportunities

In addition, we believe there are potential uses of syndication technology as one of the core tools for enabling web business. Two key trends that we see in the emerging network economy cry out for support from syndication tools:

• Value Networks. Increasingly, web businesses are creating value by assembling a network of business partners, each of whom has a specialized focus, and using that network to create and deliver products and services. High tech manufacturing has driven much of this movement as activities such as chip production, manufacturing engineering, and product assembly are outsourced. As these networks develop, content becomes increasingly important as a tool for coordinating and managing the organizations in the network.
• Intermediaries as Market Makers. Value Networks apply when there are high degrees of integration between business partners. In other, more fragmented, markets, the problem isn't integration and coordination with partners. Instead the challenge is simply finding ways to connect potential buyers and vendors. In these markets, intermediaries have a key role to play and content is again very important as a tool for helping enable the market.

High Tech Manufacturing

While these manufacturing documents certainly aren't editorial news content, the replication process shares the requirements of news syndication. Syndication tools can thus be used by the manufacturer to support its outsourcing partners.

As the manufacturer's resellers and distribution partners develop their online businesses, syndication technologies can be applied to support these partners as well. Distribution partners need current product collateral available on their websites. Again, this collateral can have complicated structures, consisting of multiple web pages, graphics, data sheets, etc. Multiple sets of the product data may be available at one time, each with its own effective dates and expiration dates. Depending on the arrangements with the distribution partners, those partners may want to incorporate their own branding into the product collateral.

Intermediary as Market Maker

David Perry, the CEO of Chemdex, has identified the market conditions under which a market maker web intermediary is needed:

• Fragmented Market. Many buyers and suppliers who are unable to connect with each other.
• Sophisticated Buyers.
• Information-intensive Products. The product itself or the purchasing process involves access to lots of information. This information must be appropriate for the web.
• Non-commodity Product.
• High "value to weight" ratio. Shipping and physical distribution costs must be low relative to the actual product value.

This is another opportunity to apply syndication technologies. Suppliers can control their product information as it is presented on the intermediary website using the tools we've described above.

Will ICE be adopted?

In order for ICE to see widespread use, the following events need to occur:

• Acceptance and support by a recognized standards body. ICE is currently the product of an informal industry consortium. The consortium does include major web vendors as well as significant potential users. However, for greater acceptance, the protocol needs to be endorsed and promoted by a major standards body. Of the available bodies, the W3C is the most appropriate. This week's announcement of the ICE submission to the W3C is therefore an important step.

 
• Support from multiple vendors. Vignette began the ICE specification process and has shepherded it through completion of the protocol specification. Obviously, Vignette will be making use of the protocol in its products. It is very important for  ICE to become more than simply a Vignette effort. And support, both for ICE syndicator tools and ICE subscriber tools, from other vendors is required. Last week's announcements from News Internet Services and ShiftKey are an encouraging first step. What remains to be seen is whether other major web software providers such as Microsoft, Netscape, BroadVision, InterWorld, and OpenMarket will support the protocol.

 
• Open Source support. We believe that acceptance and support of ICE by the open source software community will also be important. Interestingly, the web remains an area where open source software is crucially important. Open source software such as the Apache web server, the Perl scripting language, and the Linux operating system are used as a significant portion of the overall web infrastructure. The ICE protocol is ripe for support by this community. And this support would greatly aid widespread use of the protocol.

 
• Content provider support. Finally, in order for ICE to be used, there must be content distributed with it. The participation of major content providers such as Reuters, Tribune Media Services, CNET, and Newscorp in the ICE process suggests that ICE content will soon be available.

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