RSS Syndication
What is RSS?
What is ‘RSS’ and why is it so magical? RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, which suggests it’s simple but doesn’t explain much. RSS is a format for distributing and gathering content across the internet, including newspapers, magazines, and blogs.
RSS is news you choose.
Publishers and webmasters use RSS to easily create and distribute news feeds that include links, headlines, and summaries. The New York Times, ABC News, and CNN, as well as this and most RYO Websites, are among many sites that now deliver updated online content via RSS.
By selecting the sources you want, your news page is much more personal.
Suppose you add an RSS “feed” from this website to My.Yahoo! or My.MSN. When you’re signed in, you’ll see headlines in the appropriate areas of your personalized pages.
Because you told it what you wanted to see, it gets the headlines that are of interest to you. As the RSS feed is updated the content in the reader or aggregator updates with the new information. At any point, you can remove a feed and no longer receive information from that source.
Ultimately, you are choosing the news and content you wish to view.
In addition to online “news aggregators” like My.Yahoo!, My.MSN, NewsGator and Bloglines, there are many stand-alone software programs used to collect, update, and display RSS feeds. Many are free. Some work from within your web browser or email client, while others work on your desktop.
You can incorporate RSS content into weblogs for non-commercial use.
You’ve probably seen that little orange XML button on websites and wondered what it means. It indicates that content is available for RSS feeds. Again, like much of the computer world, it’s confusing that “XML” means “RSS.” So some websites, like this one, include the “RSS Feed” explanation, too. Others have orange “RSS” buttons.
What exactly does this button do? Does clicking on it subscribe the feed? It doesn’t. If you click that button, you’ll see a rather confusing page of code that’s readable by the RSS news reader, and isn’t intended for you. You must have a feed reader program installed on your computer. Then you add the link to the feed reader’s subscription list. Then the reader will pull the latest entries from the website.
Many sites that offer RSS, like this one, have “auto discovery” links in the page header that allow programs like feed readers and browsers like Firefox to automatically detect the location of your feed and pull it out. A little orange button makes it happen. (Firefox creates a “bookmark” for the website, with bookmarks for the most recent articles automatically updated.)
Some websites make it even easier to add their feeds if you’re using a web-based aggregator. Just like you see on this website, there are buttons for My Yahoo, My MSN, NewsGator, and Bloglines. Clicking those buttons will take you to those services, so you can add their feeds with a quick click. See, finally it really is getting simple!
Getting an RSS Reader
If you want to get started with RSS News, you’ll have to decide what kind of news reader you want to use. In addition to the popular web-based news aggregators (My.Yahoo!, My.MSN, NewsGator and Bloglines), you can install software on your computer.
Examples of popular desktop RSS readers are: Omea Feed Reader, Awasu Reader, and NetNewsWire. To search for an RSS news reader, click here. Be sure to choose one that runs on your computer, PC, Mac, or Linux.
Finding Feeds
In order to find topic-specific feeds, conduct a search on the RSS search engines available at RSS Locator or RSS Specifications.
What are the terms of use?
Our RSS feeds are provided free of charge for use by individuals for personal, non-commercial uses. Attribution to the source must be provided in connection with your use of the feeds.
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