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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 view 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. |
