RSS Feeds

What is RSS? RSS (really simple syndication) is an easy way to share headlines and other Web content on demand. Think of it as a distributable “What’s New” for your site. A computer user can “sign up” to receive your RSS headlines, which get delivered directly to his or her RSS news reader.

Why do people like RSS? People like RSS feeds because they don’t have to visit lots of Web sites individually. The headlines or brief summaries are delivered right to their news readers.

Is RSS right for your site? If you have information on your site that changes often (news headlines, new products, new real estate listings, a “something” (thought, joke, quote, photo) of the day or week, fishing reports, events, etc., then RSS may work for you. Many of our blogs come with RSS as a standard feature.

How can I view RSS feeds? To view RSS feeds, you need a news reader, also known as a news aggregator. Popular news readers include:

• My Yahoo! (you can use My Yahoo right through your web browser — you just need to signup for a free Yahoo! account)
• My Google (this is also a browser-based product — you just need to signup for a free Google account)
• Firefox Browser (Firefox uses “Live Bookmarks” to display RSS feeds in your Bookmarks list. Simply view an RSS file in Firefox–it will look a little cryptic–and click the Subscribe Now button at the top of the page. Select which Bookmark folder you’d like the headlines to go in.)
• Feed Demon (a standalone news reader)
• NewzCrawler (a standalone news reader)

After you have a news reader, you must add URLs (web addresses) to the RSS feeds you want to view. Here are a couple of samples to play with:

• CNN Top Stories: http://rss.cnn.com/rss/cnn_topstories.rss
• Word of the Day: http://dictionary.reference.com/wordoftheday/wotd.rss

Can I insert my news headlines on my website too? Yes! We can use a script to display your RSS feeds directly on your site. This is the same script we use to put the news headlines on our home page.

That’s it! Contact our office for more information.