Thursday, April 10, 2008
An Introduction To RSS and Feed Readers
Almost every web site with dynamic content, syndicates it's content for easy dissemination of information to it's subscribers. RSS subscription is the most easy and popular method to keep yourself informed about your favorite blog updates. A large number of Internet users are not aware about RSS and it's use. What exactly RSS is and how it works? Let us explore and try to understand RSS working and features.
What is RSS?
To put in simpler terms, RSS (Really Simple Syndication) provides an easy way to get new updated content from a web site or blog to your desktop. The older approach of explicitly visiting each bookmarked blog for new updates, wastes your precious time. With this new approach, the updated information automatically comes to you.
RSS In Plain English
RSS is content feed format, which is simple xml file specifying the content format for a blog or web site. The feed readers softwares use this xml file to fetch new updated content in the format defined in the feed xml file. The site owner can choose either to publish partial feed or full feed.
RSS Readers
They are also known as aggregator, and can be broadly divided into two categories. One is web-based version and the other is desktop version. As the name implies, the web based feed readers use your web browser to fetch feed and deliver to your account. On the other hand, the desktop version are feed softwares installed on your PC, and work as standalone application to fetch feeds for you.
Popular web-based feed readers are:
You can use also use these popular desktop feed readers:
Daily Blog Tips has taken initiative to create awareness about RSS, and there are prizes to be won worth $1750 for promoting the cause. It has been decided to observe May 1st as RSS Awareness Day to spread information about the benefits and inherent advantages of using RSS.
Which RSS reader do you use, and how many feeds do you follow regularly?
Image credit: lukethelibrarian
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