What are RSS Feeds?
RSS, which stands for Rich Site Summary and Really Simple Syndication, is a technology that enables you to constantly receive the updated links to the websites chosen by you. After you establish a connection with certain website, you will receive links to the stories and news on certain page or section of the website along with the short summary. When you click the link you will be taken to that website for the complete story.
With the help of RSS feed you have the advantage of receiving the latest information without visiting the website, thus saving lot of your precious time. You don’t even have to subscribe or register with the website ensuring that your privacy is protected and you don’t receive any unsolicited emails.
RSS feed is being used extensively by the news related websites, weblogs and online publishers to give latest information to the people who want it. The technology can also be used to convey to the web surfers the changes in the web page, updates in certain sections, changes in the products and much more. The trend with the websites is growing to provide the RSS feeds, with even some big names like Yahoo providing the free service.
Method to receive the RSS Feeds
With the technology changing at the fast rate, there are several ways of receiving the RSS feeds. The most common method comprises of downloading Feed reader or News Aggregator Software that are available for all the platforms. Some of the popular RSS feed readers include Amphetadesk, FeedReader, and NewsGator (can be integrated with Outlook). Some popular web based feed readers are My Yahoo, Bloglines, and Google Reader. After installing the software, you can set the websites from which you wish to receive the RSS feeds on regular basis.
The latest web browsers come with the in-built feature of receiving the RSS feeds. When you visit the website offering the RSS feeds, these browsers ask you if you wish to receive the feeds from them. If your response is positive, the browser enables you to create a constantly-updated list of links in your ‘bookmarks’ menu. Most of the popular web browsers like Firefox (Windows, Mac and Linux), Opera, and Safari (Mac) will alert you when you come across a webpage that provides RSS feeds. Windows Vista comes with in-built feature to receive the RSS feeds on your desktops. Then there also some screensavers that enable you to receive RSS feeds.
How to Produce RSS Feeds?
The RSS feeds are composed in the XML, a simple markup language that can be read only by the machines and not the humans. Like HTML, XML also comprises of the tags to identify the fields. It is easy for the web developers to parse the RSS feed and create dynamic webpages containing the headlines, summaries and links to the stories. The websites are updated regularly with the fresh content and with this the feeds are also updated automatically. Providing the RSS feeds has become very easy for the websites. The most important challenge for the website is to get, develop and upload the fresh content constantly. Benefits of RSS Feeds
Benefits of RSS Feeds
The webmaster strives continuously to update the website with new content relevant to the website thus encouraging the users to return again and developing the new users. The constantly updated content also makes the search engine spiders visit the website frequently. The readers on the other benefit from this as they can read the latest information useful for them just by clicking. They don’t have to visit the website and search for a particular content.
The essence of the RSS feeds is that you can choose the content that you want and there is no spamming at all. It you don’t wish to receive the content that is irrelevant to you, all you to do is just remove the link. Since RSS feeds provide number of benefits to the web developers as well as the users, its popularity is only going to increase in the future.
