Improve Your Web Surfing Experience With RSS
What is RSS anyway? It stands for Real Simple Syndication, but it's not all that simple if you don't know what the heck to do.
Here is a little overview of what the point to RSS is. Basically, instead of you visiting web sites the web sites visit you. You run a program on your computer (or use a web application) that is called a news aggregator. As new information is added to a web site, it pops up in your news aggregator. Each web site handles this information a little differently. Either a brief overview is given and if you want more information, you click a link that takes you to the page telling you more. Or, all the information will be in the "feed". What's cool about this is that you don't have to keep going to a web page to see if anything is new. Once something is new, it's brought directly to you.
Most web sites have started to use RSS. Only now are people seeing the value. I myself just started a year or so ago and haven't looked back since.
The first step is to find a news aggregator. I use a program that runs on my PC called FeedDemon. There is a trial if you are interested. But if you want to get a taste, there are a couple free web news aggregators that can be used. Both Bloglines and Newsgator will do the job. Just add the feeds to the web pages you like and the rest is cake. Sometimes adding the url for the feed can be confusing. It's different with each news aggregator. But if you see an icon on the web site that has a graphic (usually orange) that says RSS or XML, right click on graphic and select "Copy Shortcut". Paste that shortcut address into your aggregator when adding a new feed. This method should work with all aggregators. HERE is a link to what some of the RSS graphics might look like.
RSS is being used for many cool things. Podcasting utilizes RSS so you can subscribe to shows. eBay has recently added RSS to their searches. So now as new items are added to eBay under your search, they automatically pop up in your news aggregator without you even trying to look for them. HERE is a search on eBay. You'll see the RSS feed at the bottom of the search.
Think of a news aggregator as a big newspaper. The only difference is you are choosing the information that your newspaper is filled with.
I encourage you to investigate RSS more if you do a lot of web surfing. It'll make the experience much more enjoyable. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to email me. I certainly don't mind helping you out. You can also find more information HERE.
Subscribe to this blog using http://craiglambert.blogspot.com/atom.xml as the feed url. You'll also see my RSS Feed graphic on the bottom of the right column of my blog. New postings to the blog will automatically pop up in your news aggregator as I release them. The power of RSS!
Here is a little overview of what the point to RSS is. Basically, instead of you visiting web sites the web sites visit you. You run a program on your computer (or use a web application) that is called a news aggregator. As new information is added to a web site, it pops up in your news aggregator. Each web site handles this information a little differently. Either a brief overview is given and if you want more information, you click a link that takes you to the page telling you more. Or, all the information will be in the "feed". What's cool about this is that you don't have to keep going to a web page to see if anything is new. Once something is new, it's brought directly to you.
Most web sites have started to use RSS. Only now are people seeing the value. I myself just started a year or so ago and haven't looked back since.
The first step is to find a news aggregator. I use a program that runs on my PC called FeedDemon. There is a trial if you are interested. But if you want to get a taste, there are a couple free web news aggregators that can be used. Both Bloglines and Newsgator will do the job. Just add the feeds to the web pages you like and the rest is cake. Sometimes adding the url for the feed can be confusing. It's different with each news aggregator. But if you see an icon on the web site that has a graphic (usually orange) that says RSS or XML, right click on graphic and select "Copy Shortcut". Paste that shortcut address into your aggregator when adding a new feed. This method should work with all aggregators. HERE is a link to what some of the RSS graphics might look like.
RSS is being used for many cool things. Podcasting utilizes RSS so you can subscribe to shows. eBay has recently added RSS to their searches. So now as new items are added to eBay under your search, they automatically pop up in your news aggregator without you even trying to look for them. HERE is a search on eBay. You'll see the RSS feed at the bottom of the search.
Think of a news aggregator as a big newspaper. The only difference is you are choosing the information that your newspaper is filled with.
I encourage you to investigate RSS more if you do a lot of web surfing. It'll make the experience much more enjoyable. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to email me. I certainly don't mind helping you out. You can also find more information HERE.
Subscribe to this blog using http://craiglambert.blogspot.com/atom.xml as the feed url. You'll also see my RSS Feed graphic on the bottom of the right column of my blog. New postings to the blog will automatically pop up in your news aggregator as I release them. The power of RSS!
posted by Craig at 9:45 AM
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