READING FROM A MULTITUDE OF WEB FEEDS

摘要

A system, apparatus, and method are provided for retrieving new content from a multitude of web feeds (e.g., hundreds of thousands). Each of multiple sources hosts one or more web feeds (e.g., RSS feeds, Atom feeds), and is categorized based on how frequently new content is found in the source's feeds. Each source has a corresponding status indicator whose value increases (to a maximum value), each time the source's feeds are serviced (e.g., polled, downloaded) and new content is received, or decreases (to a minimum value) if no new content is received and the indicator has not been recently decreased. Each category of web feed source corresponds to a range of possible status indicator values, and a given source may dynamically move between categories as its status indicator value changes.

主权项

1. A computer-implemented method of retrieving content published in multiple web feeds offered by multiple sources, the method comprising:
identifying web feeds offered by the multiple sources; and operating the computer to, for each of the multiple sources:
poll the web feeds offered by the source to determine whether any polled web feed has new content;retrieve the new content from each of the web feeds that has new content;increment a content indicator value corresponding to the source if the content indicator value is not currently a maximum value;decrement the content indicator value if:
the content indicator value is not currently a minimum value; andthe content indicator value has not been decremented within a threshold period of time; andschedule the source for a next polling.