RSS!

What is RSS? What does it do? How do I take advantage of it? What can it do for me?

Questions… questions… questions… All that I plan to answer!

Lets start with a basic definition of RSS…. (turns to Wikipedia)

RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines, and podcasts in a standardized format.^[2] An RSS document (which is called a “feed” or “web feed”^[3] or “channel”) contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with web sites in an automated manner that can be piped into special programs or filtered displays.^[3]

The initials “RSS” are used to refer to the following formats: Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0), RDF Site Summary (RSS 1.0 and RSS 0.90), Rich Site Summary (RSS 0.91).

Make sense? Excellent! Moving on…

Okay just kidding . Basically RSS is a simplified version of a part of a website that has updates to it. So a flickr page has one, a blog defiantly has one, and other random places on websites. How do you know what websites have them? They have these symbols.

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The tiny little “RSS” in the end of the web page address box (circled in Red)… and…

Or a text and hyper link in the blog or web page.

Basically when a part of a page is update, or new content is added, complicated scripts turn it into a simple text and image page that can be added to RSS readers.

What is an RSS reader? This program lets you subscribe to a RSS feeds and they get put into your reader and all the updates to the web page appears in one window. There are quite a few RSS readers. Here are some of the most popular (SCROLL DOWN to see my suggestion if you don’t want to bother with them all).

Bloglines
Free, web-based news aggregator that makes it easy to keep up with your favorite blogs and RSS newsfeeds.
www.bloglines.com

Feedreader
Windows application that reads and displays RSS newsfeeds based on XML.
www.feedreader.com

FeedBurner
Advanced feed management technology that helps bloggers, podcasters, and commercial publishers get more value from the content they create.
www.feedburner.com

SharpReader
RSS aggregator for the .NET framework.
www.sharpreader.net

NewsGator
RSS news aggregator that runs in Microsoft Outlook.
www.newsgator.com

Radio UserLand
Blog tool that builds a site, organizes and archives posts, and publishes content.
radio.userland.com

NewzCrawler
Web news reader and browser which provides access to news content from different sources.
www.newzcrawler.com

Pluck
Offers an Internet Explorer add-on which integrates a bookmark manager, web sharing, RSS reader, and search.
www.pluck.com

Awasu
Free Windows RSS news-reader.
www.awasu.com

Google Reader
Customizable aggregator for feeds from news sites, blogs, and other sites with a sharing facility.
reader.google.com

RSS Bandit
An RSS/Atom aggregator for desktops written with the .NET Framework.
www.rssbandit.org

PubSub
Allows you to subscribe to queries that are then matched against newly published information from sources such as blogs, newsgroups, and SEC filings.
www.pubsub.com

Rojo Networks
Discover, organize, and share the wide range of dynamic RSS content on the Internet.
www.rojo.com

All Headline News
Continuously updated news and headline links from thousands of news sources. Also offers RSS feeds.
www.allheadlinenews.com

BlogBurst
Syndication service that places your blog content on top-tier online destinations to broaden reach, increase page views, and gain visibility.
www.blogburst.com

edgeio
Collects and organizes classified listings published on other RSS enabled web sites or directly onto edgeio. Browse or use keyword search to find and access the RSS feed you’re looking for, or to upload your own RSS feed.
www.edgeio.com

Share Your OPML
A commons for sharing outlines, feeds, and taxonomy.
share.opml.org

AmphetaDesk
Cross platform, open-sourced, syndicated news aggregator.
www.disobey.com/amphetadesk

RMail
Subscription service that lets you watch an RSS subscription via email.
www.r-mail.orgNewsburst
RSS aggregator from CNET.
www.newsburst.com

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My Suggestion! Google Reader! Now it is the only program I’ve used for RSS feeds so I’m biased and inexperienced in the others… BUT its amazing and I love it! So I’ll use Google Reader to show you some screenshots and hopefully explain in a more example basis, how to use RSS feeds.

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This is the overview window of google reader. When you subscribe to a reader (more on that later) you can create folders to subdivde your feeds. It shows you in numbers how many items there are in the feeds.

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One of the main things I use Google Reader for is Flickr Photos. All of the contacts I wish to watch I have put their RSS pages in Google Reader. So when anyone uploads a photo it shows up in my reader. I get around 150 to 200 flickr photos that show up in my reader everyday. And yes… I go through them all .

I also have a various of other things I use Google Reader for… SL blogs, RL photo blogs, Technology news, and ebay. Yep when you type in a ebay item there is a RSS buttom in the web bar, click on that, subscribe to it, and whenever there is a new item added under your search description it shows up in your RSS reader.

NOW! How do you get this awesome thing! Go to www.google.com/reader and signup for a google account. When you first log in you will see options in the very top left of the bar.

Click on the Reader link and it will take you too Google Reader. Now that you are logged in open a new tab in your browser or a new window which ever you prefer. Go to a blog or flickr and locate the RSS link in either the webpage bar or on the actual webpage.

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Click on either and it will take you to a page that looks like this…

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Click the “add to google reader” and it will take you to google reader and a new hyperlink to the RSS feed will appear in the blue lower menu box that looks like this…

You can then drag any of the blue links around to get them in an order you like.

And thats… pretty much it. I hope you understand what it is and how to go about setting it up. If you have any questions you can IM me inworld (belmakor pintens), email me belmakorpintens@gmail.com, or comment here .

Hope you found this useful!