You'll recognise the universal icon on your favorite sites, blogs and podcasts. What 'RSS' means is that the website has content (text, audio or video) that you can subscribe to and read/see/listen to, using just a reader for feeds or content.
The evolution of the technology of online publication has made it really easy, not just to publish regular updates of the content, it also allows you to constantly receive lists of news from your favorite sites or blogs, without having to check every one manually or have your inbox in a mess or full of unread emails.
Now you can pep up your online experience by subscribing to those feeds or channels which provide specific content, and store the information where you can read it when you have time.
- RSS is:
* Essential for the Consumer: by subscribing to these channels you can look over a huge amount of content in a short time.
* Essential for editors: the feeds allow simultaneous distribution of content and make everything “subscribable”
- Who publishes feeds?
Most of the big names on the internet offer content via RSS; for example, USATODAY.com, BBC News Headlines, ABCNews, CNET, Yahoo!, Amazon.com (including a podcast!), and all websites bearing the RSS
icon.
Indeed, all websites using the Ab•core platform, even your own organization, can generate content. You just have to put '/rss' after your web address (www.yourwebsite.org/rss) and you'll see which of the information on your site can be subscribed to as an RSS. Normally the News and Events categories are content which can be chosen by anybody.
* How do I read the feeds or channels?
To read the information you get from different websites, you need to subscribe to a feed reader. These days there are more than 2,000 different applications known also as “news aggregators”. Most are for text but there are also audio aggregators (for podcasts or audios) which work only on cell- or mobile phones.
• Some of them require a small payment but they are easier to use and they have some feeds already selected, which allows you to explore with ease the world of feeds.
• There are also free readers in popular search engines such as Google, Netvibes, etc. A typical page design of a feed reader will display the feeds or channels you've subscribed to and the number of new entries in each one. It will also allow you to organize them in categories and even archive and save your favorite entries.
• Finally, if you prefer, there are online services that will manage and classify your feeds. Their advantage is that they are accessible wherever you go and you can update them from wherever you are. Not only
that, updates and the latest news items will be added automatically.
We know that it's not always easy to understand something just by reading about it, so here's an explanatory video that will make you an expert on RSS.
