Note : Feel free to use this article on your site with content, links, and author bio unedited.
What is RSS and how do you use it to your advantage!
2009-03-27
RSS?
You've no doubt noted the little orange buttons that say either RSS or xml or have something that looks like fish bones on them. Then you click on it and get a funny looking web page? Perhaps you are asking yourself what race of interplanetary spacoids is polluting your internet with more crap. It's not like there already isn’t enough.
Actually, one of the benefits of RSS is to avoid some of that crap! Avoid it you say? Yes! Read on.
What if you could have some of that wonderful internet come to you instead of you always having to go look for it? And all those great sites you've visited that you completely forgot about? Can you get the milk delivered for free?
Puhhhleeeze tell me how ite works!!
So, first some not so technical technical details. RSS feeds are just like web pages but are meant to be consumed by computers. They are in a special format - usually RSS or atom - which exposes a description of what the feed is about and then at least one list of items. Each item in that list will have a title, a description and a link.
Using special software, you subscribe to the feeds and have an easy way to browse the articles without ever firing up a browser. That software tries to keep track of what you have and have not read so you don't risk ever rereading the same article.
Yup, that’s about all you need to know.
Special software you say?
To take advantage of them, you must employ a program - usually called a feed reader or aggregator - which reads the feed and parses it into lists that you can peruse as you wish. There are basically 3 different types.
- The first is the stand alone application. This is a dedicated application that you have on your desktop. Some best of breed examples are FeedDemon and NewzCrawler which range from free to 30$ or so.
- Next you have the plugin type. This will attach either to your browser or to your email program. These are nice as you don't need to get yet another software application. There are free ones for Firefox or Internet Explorer.
- Lastly, you have the online feed readers. Google has the Google reader and Yahoo has My Yahoo which can consume feeds.
View a very large list here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_feed_aggregators.
No, really, how do you make them work?
It is simple actually, if you have the installed type of reader, it will automatically detect feeds in pages and give you options to subscribe to them.
Alternatively, you can capture the link of the feed and give it your aggregator. Look for a button or option called "New Feed" or "New Subscription" or similar.
Many of the programs allow you to just give the name of the website and they will find the feed. Once the software is aware of the feed, it will automatically check for updates. Whenever you look at your reader, the latest items will be displayed - usually in a list format. You can search or just browse them as you please.
Most will come with some feeds pre-installed so you can see how to use them with some existing data.
Is that it?
And that is all there is to consuming RSS feeds. Do be warned, you may find having the web come to you very time consuming.