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Everybody's Talking About RSS
by Merle ©Copyright 2004

No matter if you call it "Really Simple Syndication" or "Rich 
Site Summary", RSS is definitely all the rage right now online. 
With email filtering, IP blocking and the newest "Can Spam Act," 
everyone's scampering for a better way to get their messages
across to their subscribers.

With RSS, customers don't have to come to your website or open 
their inboxes to get your latest news and updates. Once they 
subscribe to your "feed," the news comes to them automatically. 
But wait; I'm getting ahead of myself here. Let's get back to 
the basics.

RSS is an XML based format that originated with Netscape. To 
use RSS, you must first create what's called a "feed." This is 
basically a file which you upload to your server. RSS feeds end 
with .rss, .rdf or .xml extensions and can be created by hand.
A RSS file needs to include the headlines, links, and summaries 
of the content you want to distribute.

Once a feed has been created, other computers can subscribe to 
your "channel" and read your updates using what's called an 
"Aggregator" or "news reader."

Most feeds consist of a link with a short summary to click on to 
read the entire article. To let people know your site offers an 
RSS feed, you place an orange XML icon on your site linked to 
the url of your feed. You'll also want to list your feed with 
various RSS search engines that exist just for the purpose of 
collecting a database of feeds.

So what kinds of things can you turn into feeds? I thought you'd 
never ask. Any area of your site that changes on a regular basis 
is a good candidate. Things like newsletters, news announcements, 
site updates, anything that you update regularly.

If you have no idea how to create a feed, this site will do it 
for you: http://MyRSS.com .

Just type in the HTML page you wish to make a feed from and it 
converts it to RSS for you automatically. 

Another great tool that will create a RSS feed for you is 
http://feedster.com/builder.php?next=cfintro . This works 
especially well if you need a feed of your third party hosted 
Blog, for example Blogger.

There's also a script that will convert any HTML doc into RSS 
-- Go to http://kalsey.com/tools/blogfeed/ . If you'd like to 
validate your feed, you can do  so at http://feedvalidator.org .

A News Reader is simply a software program that brings what's 
new straight to you in an organized, easy to read format.

Let's take a look at some of your options when it comes to 
readers and what's available to you.

1) RSSReader: http://RssReader.com

Free; it collects news in the background and warns you with a 
popup in your system tray when there's new information available.

2) Ampheta Desk: http://AmphetaDesk.com

Free, cross platform aggregator.

3) WildGrape: http://WildGrape.net

For Windows; reads headlines from thousands of sources. Free.

4) Sharp Reader: http://SharpReader.net

Free reader for the .Net Framework created by Luke Hutteman

5) Newz Crawler: http://NewzCrawler.com

Web News Reader and browser. There's a two week free trial. You 
can purchase it for only $24.95.

6) Feed Demon: http://FeedDemon.com

Download a free trial or purchase for only $29. Written by Nick 
Bradbury, creator of Top Style and Hoesite. Feed Demon is loaded 
with great features.

7) Feed Reader: http://FeedReader.com

Freeware; Windows app that supports all RSS feeds and formats.

8) Blog Lines: http://Bloglines.com

A web based Blog and newsfeed reader. No software to install to 
read your feeds; just visit the site and log into your account.

9) Awasu: http://Awasu.com

Free Windows news reader that integrates with Internet Explorer.

10) Feed Readers: http://FeedReaders.com

Lockergnome's offering in the news reader field. Seven day free 
trial. Two versions available: pro or standard with pricing 
ranging from $5.00 to $15.00.

If these options aren't enough, you'll want to check out the 
full list of readers over at 
http://www.lights.com/weblogs/rss.html If you'd like to have 
feeds sent directly to your inbox instead of downloading a 
reader, check out
http://rss.blogstreet.com/asp-rssbin/auth_rss

Once you download a reader you need feeds to subscribe to. 
Check out http://Syndic8.com for thousands of choices. 

So now that you understand the technology, what are the 
advantages and disadvantages of RSS? Here's a big one: your 
subscribers don't have to give up their email addresses, which 
is great for those with privacy concerns. RSS puts control of 
subscriptions directly in the hands of your users. When they 
wish to unsubscribe they just delete the feed from their reader.
It also reduces the risk of Sp@m accusations. If you're an ezine 
publisher and you don't have to worry about getting your messages 
past all of the filters in place by users and ISP's.

The disadvantages are that you cannot include personalization, 
and you have no way of knowing how many people are subscribing 
to your feed. Also, at this time, RSS may seem a bit complicated 
to the novice user and it has not become widely adopted by Web 
users.

If you haven't looked into RSS, now's the time to consider this 
technology as another avenue for reaching out to your website 
visitors, and keeping them informed.

================================================================
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in a live auction setting! Publishers sell off your excess 
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