What is RSS?
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Here is my RSS Feed: http://ziomania.com/ziomania.rss
Copy this link to your favorite NewsReader and you will immediately get a 'Feed' for my blog.
RSS stands for 'Really Simple Syndication'. But that certainly sounds very technical to me and I am sure to you, too. So let's move on to ordinary English and give you an idea of what RSS is. It is something great, it is something that every blogger and every news reader should not be without or else you risk being left behind.
What does it do? It lets you see what all your favorite websites are posting on a single page. You skip having to go visit each website individually and instead go straight to your RSS newsreader.
What is an RSS Newsreader? They are also known as news aggregagtors and you would need to download one of these newsreaders inorder to see the RSS feeds all compiled on one single page. There are many and you would have to experiment with one or two to get a feel of what feels good to you. My first reader was 'Bloglines' and my second was 'GoogleReader' and now I am mostly using 'FeedDemon'. I list below links to some of the Newsreaders (I just did a copy and paste from another blog to make it easier for you to access them from this link.)
How do you know if your favorite website has an RSS feed? 1. All free blogs such as blogname.blogspot.com or blogname.wordpress.com come automatically RSS-enabled and all you need to do is just copy and paste the blog name to your RSS Reader. 2) Most blogs have software running in the background such as wordpress and they too have an easy way to set up their RSS feed. Most blogs would display their RSS feed via an image that looks like this:
How to search your favorite blog to see if it has an RSS feed: You can type 'rss' or 'xml' on the website of interest to you to see if they do have an RSS-feed. If nothing turns up, you may type the name of the website plus 'rss' on your favorite search engine. If nothing turns up again, it means your website of interest may not be RSS-enable and it may not hurt for you to write to them and alert them to the fact that they are missing out by not having an RSS-Feed on their website.
Note: Major news outlets such as the San Francisco Examiner have multiple feeds, each feed devoted to a particular section of their website such as local or international news, weather, the stock market, travel, etc.
Here is more on Wikipedia for those who need to know more about NewsReaders and RSS-Feeds. Click here.
I just copied and pasted the following info from another site and the following list appears to me to be a good source for RSS Readers. You can always spend some time on your own researching NewsReaders.List of Popular RSS Readers
# Popular RSS Readers for Windows
Blog Navigator – Blog Navigator is a new program that makes it easy to read blogs on the Internet. It integrates into various blog search engines and can automatically determine RSS feeds from within properly coded websites.
Feed Demon (Best+Free) – FeedDemon’s easy-to-use interface makes it a snap to stay informed with the latest news and information.
NewzCrawler – NewzCrawler is a rss/atom reader, news aggregator, browser and blog client for Windows which provides access to news content from various sources
Omea Reader – It’s fast, it aggregates, and it keeps you organized. Check out the additional features: lightning-fast desktop search, flexible information organizer, contextual access, and quick extensibility for developers who want more.
RSS Bandit - RSS reader that works with Google Reader and Facebook.
Sharp Reader – Feed settings like refresh-rate and purge timeout can be set per feed or per category. Category-wide settings apply to all feeds in that category that are still set to "Default" for the setting in question.
# Popular RSS Readers for Mac OS Users
NewsMacPro – NewsLife is the simplest way to stay up-to-date with tons of websites without even having to touch your web browser until you see something you want to read.
NewsFan – NewsFan is the RSS web news aggregator for MacOS X. NewsFan download the latest news from thousands of web sites and gathering to read quick and easy.
NewsFire (Best+Free) – NewsFire’s feed list, floating new items to the top with smooth animation, is an original. It looks good. It moves well. It delivers the polished Mac experience you expect.
NetNewsWire (Good+Free) – Award-winning NetNewsWire has a familiar three-paned interface and can fetch and display news from millions of different websites and weblogs.
OmniWeb – OmniWeb is a powerful, feature-rich alternative to the standard web browser. Save time and be more productive by using built-in web shortcuts and unique drag-and-drop tabbed windows.
Shrook – Shrook is a full-featured RSS reader that’s completely free – no ads, no spyware. And if you want to access your feeds on another Mac, iPhone or any web-connected PC, just get a shrook.com account for painless synchronization.
# Best Online RSS Readers
Bloglines – Bloglines is a FREE online service for subscribing, creating and sharing news feeds, blogs and rich web content. With Bloglines, there is no software to download or install — simply register as a new user and you can instantly begin accessing your account any time, from any computer or mobile device.
Google (Best) – Google Reader is a Web-based aggregator, capable of reading Atom and RSS feeds online or offline. Read them in one place with Google Reader, where keeping up with your favorite websites is as easy as checking your email.
Also See : Best Ways to Read News Headlines Online
