Since I'm still learning about RSS and delivering content by RSS feeds, I thought I'd let someone who knows what they're talking about inform you. This article is reprinted by permission.
RSS: News You Choose
Copyright 2005 Sharon Housley
Why is RSS So Magical?
The answer is simple: RSS is news you choose.
How Does it Work?
Publishers and webmasters provide content and news in an
RSS feed. Users view the content of interest in an RSS
reader or news aggregator. The aggregator or reader
contains the collection of feeds that are of interest to
the user. As the RSS feed is updated the content in the
reader or aggregator updates with the new information. At
any point, users can remove a feed from their aggregator or
reader and no longer receive information from that source.
Ultimately, the user is choosing the news and content they
wish to view.
As RSS has increased in popularity more and more webmasters
and publishers have adopted RSS as an alternative
communication stream. Webmasters use an RSS graphic to
indicate the content is available via RSS.
RSS Aggregators and News Readers
Generally, there are three types of RSS readers that users
use to view feeds that they've subscribed to. Feeds can be
viewed in a desktop application, web-based aggregator, or
plug-in aggregator.
Desktop RSS Readers
Standalone desktop applications generally run in the
background, similar to an e-mail client, automatically
refreshing headlines as newfeeds are updated. The RSS
readers collect the feeds and refresh items in the feeds
each time they are updated. An example of a popular
standalone desktop RSS reader is: FeedDemon -
http://www.feeddemon.com
Web Based Aggregators
Web-based news aggregators are online services. In simple
terms, you can personalize a web page. Each time that page
is accessed or each time you login to the service, the web
page news headlines from feeds that you have selected will
refresh. Examples of popular web-based RSS aggregators are:
SurfPack - http://www.surfpack.com , FeedScout -
http://www.feedscout.com or ActiveWeb Reader -
http://www.deskshare.com/awr.aspx . My.Yahoo even has the
option of including RSS feeds on My.Yahoo start pages.
Plug-in Readers
Plug-in news aggregators expand the functionality of
existing applications to allow users to veiw RSS feeds from
within an existing program. Some plug-ins work with web
browsers; others work with e-mail clients. An example of a
plugin is: NewsGator Outlook -
http://www.newsgator.com/outlook.aspx
Websites containing RSS feeds usually have a colorful
graphic indicating the availability of an RSS feed. The
graphic is usually marked 'RSS' or 'XML'. Simply click the
graphic and enter the URL of the file into the reader.
Regardless of the RSS reader or news aggregator used by web
surfers, the process of adding feeds is generally simple.
Web surfers need only to enter the URL of the RSS feed that
they wish to view into their news reader. Each time the
reader refreshes the feed the information contained within
the feed is updated and new content in the feed will appear
in the RSS reader.
Finding Feeds
In order to find topic-specific feeds, conduct a search on
the RSS search engines available at RSS Specifications -
http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-directory.htm or try
RSS Locator - http://www.rss-locator.com .
About the Author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll
http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing
and publishing RSS feeds and NotePage, Inc.
http://www.notepage.net a wireless messaging software
company
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