All Posts Tagged With: "podcasting"

Does this ever sound like a silly question but in the space of 3 hours I’ve had two people ask what it was. So what is RSS or an RSS feed for that matter? In short, it’s a way to read what’s published on another site without actually going there. Then there is the long answer; any one of a number of file formats (usually XML) that are used to syndicate web content via such things as blogs or podcasts.

A user wishing to keep abreast of the goings on of a site (this site) for example, can simply subscribe to the newsfeed (click here). Using software called “feed readers” you can subscribe to our feed and then anytime we post new content your reader is automatically updated. The advantage is, you can use one view or one tool to keep up with many different sites at once.

Most sites publish only partial feeds, a summary or except that’s designed to get you to come to the site to continue reading while others publish full feeds, as we do here. The hope is that as your scanning through the feeds if you find something we’ve posted interesting you’ll visit the site to find more vs. teasing teasing you into coming.

RSS feeds come in various formats, you’ll hear terms like Atom, XML and podcasts. They’re all basically the same thing, the format is simple a specification that determines how the feed is formated so your news reader can break it down and display it to you in a human readable format.

There’s a big list of newsreaders you can choose from here or I recommend just using Google Reader, it’s free and does a really good job. Plus you don’t have to install anything but you will need to register an account, if you have Gmail your all set.

To subscribe to a sites feed, you simply look for their feed link.

CNN for example uses a combination of text links and image links using a standard orange feed icon located at the bottom of the page.

Blogs, like this one usually make them a little more noticable. Ours is at the top of the page on the right.

- The standardized icon, comes in various sizes.

- Feedburner is a service that aides sites in managing their feeds, works the same for you the reader.

RSS Feed - Others use just a standard text link that links to their feed.

If you want to try it out, click one of the three links just above, we’d certainly appreciate your interest in our site.

I hope this helps explain RSS a little more. I intentionally tried to stay basic with it, but if you really want the gory details visit the RSS section on Wikipedia or you can just read through the entire specification here.