ESIP Topical Content Syndicator

Groups of people working on similar topics can find it difficult to keep track of updates and discussions happening across organizational boundaries. The Topical Content Syndicator - prototyped here with Funding Friday support - provides a focal point for communities of like interest to aggregate, mash up and re-share relevant content.

The application allows community organizers to select and import a range of relevant source feeds, drawn from the web or social media (in RSS or Atom format). The combined stream is broadcast to community members and the general public as an accessible, easy-to-read web feed - or as RSS for re-syndication. Members can also subscribe to the stream, or filter it, then save and re-share those filtered streams.

Any number of Topical Content Syndicator sites could be rolled out, each set up to serve different interest or community groups. This extensibility is enabled by a open source Drupal distribution architecture, which allows for many instances of the underlying application to be spun up quickly and efficiently.

By bridging communication gaps between groups working on similar topics, we hope to foster productive discussions and ultimately spur faster progress towards their shared goals.