Real Simple Syndication (RSS) is a revolutionary application, which use Extensible Markup Language (XML) to share news and other content on the Internet.
Though the weblog community of the Internet mainly uses RSS, the global news agencies are also using this technology for syndicating news and other interesting and latest stories for readers across the globe.
The advantage syndicating allows websites share their headings and contents.
Install RSS feed reader
To use RSS feeds you need to install RSS feed reader or newsreader on your computer. The feed reader executes the XML code and displays the content in a readable format with a list of titles and links.
Installing RSS readers from the Internet requires very little time. You can have a number of versions available; while you need to download some of the readers to access RSS feeds some readers offer display and subscribe instantly.
However, you should select the one, which is useful as well as flexible for you.
In general RSS feed readers can be of two types – standalone application and plug-in application.
– The standalone application is able to process RSS feeds. Moreover, this is a simple program and users can utilize the application based on their requirements.
– The plug-in application supports Internet Explorer and Microsoft Outlook. Some of these readers are available free on the Internet.
The decision of choosing browser is equally important like choosing an application to use RSS feeds. Browsers like Firefox, Safari and Opera have inbuilt feature to support RSS feeds. These browsers can automatically select RSS feeds for the users.
Choose content wisely
Once you finish installing RSS feed reader you have to select the type of content you want to subscribe. If you want to access news, you can go to any of the famous news sites like BBC and CNN and subscribe to the news and entertainment stories.
All you have to do is click on the RSS button (usually orange in color). Now you can copy or cut the URL of that page and include that into the news feed of your feed reader.
RSS feeds are quite useful to make a site content rich. As long as you do not have your own site content, you can use RSS feeds to enrich site with other site’s content.
Whenever a new story is being posted on that site, or news is being updated, your RSS feed updates the story automatically without any process of updating content.
News agencies and other content providers usually develop RSS feeds using their server, database and scripting language for server side.
A server is needed to place the feed on the Internet, the database contains the description and content of news while scripting language is used on the server-side to get the content from the database.
Most RSS directories and search engines provide a submission page. You can use this page to get people know about your feed. Further, for easy access of the feed, you have to put a link on your webpage.
This link will allow people to access your feeds easily. You can customize this link based on your choice. Orange or blue RSS icons are commonly used RSS icons to link a webpage with its feed.
