Frommers guides are currently undergoing implementation as a part of our core content delivery system.

Individual elements of Frommers content - a review of a restaraunt, an article in the static content, or an attraction listing - is stored in separate articles retrieved via the XML events feed; once fully loaded, the system will contain thousands of these documents.

Each document is marked up with a set of category metadata. These categories reflect a number of different types of information on each article; these include all of the core categorisation present in the original Frommers data, as well as transforming some data stored as free text within the original content into a metadata structure more suitable for mass distribution, navigation, UI construction, and the replacement of some text with images where appropriate in some designs.

Frommers content is retrieved in two different ways; event, attractions, or review article content, which may be connected to but behave differently than a guide, are retrieved using the XML Events feed, and support highlights processing for customers who purchase it using the XML Event Highlights feed. The XML Events feed innately searches for content at or below the location specified in the location hierarchy; a request for London, for example, returns all of the content in and around London.

Frommers narrative text, the bulk of guide text for a location, has its content provided by the XML Events feed, but is also referred to/indexed by the XML Location feed. Customers taking a Frommers narrative text/guide feed make use of the XML Location feed to request the guidebook information available on any given location; that location references a series of articles which can be retrieved from the XML Articles feed, and provides an easy way of discerning which information pertains exactly to a location. This ensures that a request for a guide to, say, Florida, contains only the guide content which pertains to Florida itself, and not its sub-locations.

The Frommers narrative content can also be searched for using the XML Events list feed, much the same way you would for any other event or the non-narrative Frommers content. For example, should you wish to get a list of all of the articles which contain narrative Frommers "Overview" content for Florida or any of its child cities which you have purchased.

Frommers Article Content

As mentioned previously, article content is retrieved using the XML Events feed; a request is made for a given location to get all of the articles which pertain to that location. Customers can request specific categories, request the "top level" category for the content they are requesting ("Products→Frommers→Accomodation", for example), or request everything available to their account. Which exact requests are made depend on how the client chooses to implement feeds, how search will be implemented on their site, their ability to organise and manage third-party content in their system, and the software framework built into their site which is available to them for use.

  • Accomodation
    Accomodation information retains all of its original categories, and may take additional category data based on data present in the frommers content. Users of this content can build UI for users to reach this content by allowing users to navigate any of those category trees; for example, selecting a location and choosing any of the possible categories with which to get a list of appropriate hotels.
  • Dining
    A restaraunt review would contain metadata for the category which Frommers places it into; it may also have metadata for what cards it is known to take, or what sections of a Frommers guide the review was taken from. Users of this content can build UI for users to reach this content by allowing users to navigate any of those category trees; for example, selecting a location and choosing "fine dining" to get to a list of appropriate restaraunts for that location.
  • Shopping
    Shopping points of interest retain additional metadata provided by Frommers, along with additional metadata extracted from the content. Like the others, each is positioned within the location hierarchy to the specific venue, to allow for coarse- and fine-grained location search implementations by clients.
  • Attractions
    Attractions information retains the attractions category data provided by Frommers, and gain other types of metadata from the content itself; each attraction will be positioned within the location hierarchy, to allow for coarse- and fine-grained location search implementations.

Narrative Text

Each section of the narrative text has metadata which describes the content hierarchy; essentially, the "table of contents" for that narrative text. This hierarchical metadata, embedded in each separate section, provides a way of building the original content hierarchy in a uniform way, across all of the content being selected. The table of contents information can then be used to build breadcrumbs, menus, and other navigation types. Other types of information, extracted from the narrative text, will also be available under separate metadata hierarchies, and can be used in a similar way - for example, to build indexes, sitemaps, and for local search engine construction.