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The Making of an RSS Feed
by Sharon Housley ©Copyright 2004

Everyday more and more websites, news services and blogs are
adding RSS content. RSS is a method of syndicating content.The
concept of aggregating content in one central location or
repository is very appealing. Consumers have become tired of
push technology, RSS allows users the flexibility to regain
control of their content. RSS feed creators provide content
without forcing it on consumers. In fact with RSS, consumers 
are able to choose the content they wish to view. 

How to Make an RSS Feed 
RSS feeds contain what are referred to as "items". The items 
are usually connected in some way and contain a common theme 
or other similarity. 

The following feed http://www.notepage.net/feed.xml contains
eight items. The items are all SMS and paging related news
articles that would likely benefit someone interested in the
wireless market. 

Each item contains:

* title 
* description 
* link 

The title and description should be written to describe the 
content and the link should reference the webpage that contains 
that actual content. 

Like html, the xml file uses open and close tags to designate
the title, description and link. Tags are enclosed in brackets
<>, like standard html and the close tag contains a forward
slash /. 

The following is what an item in a xml file looks like:

<title>The Title Goes Here </title> 
<description> The description goes here </description> 
<link> http://www.linkgoeshere.com </link>

As I mentioned earlier, an RSS feeds contains items and like the
tags above, an open and close tag is used to distinguish between
items. 

<item> 
<title> The Title Goes Here </title> 
<description> The description goes here </description> 
<link> http://www.linkgoeshere.com </link> 
</item> 

<item> 
<title> Another Title Goes Here </title> 
<description> Another description goes here </description> 
<link> http://www.anotherlinkgoeshere.com< /link> 
</item> 

Now an RSS Feed is a series of items, these items are chained
together to create what is called a "Channel". 

The Channel appears at the top of the file and tells people how
the items relate to each other. Like items, channels use title,
description and link tags to describe its content. The open
channel tag <channel> occurs before the first item and the close
tag </channel> occurs after the last item. 

<channel> 
<title> The Channel Title Goes Here </title> 
<description> The explanation of how the items are related goes here
</description> 
<link> http://www.directoryoflinksgohere </link> 

<item> 
<title> The Title Goes Here </title> 
<descritpion> The description goes here </description> 
<link> http://www.linkgoeshere.com </link> 
</item> 

<item> 
<title> Another Title Goes Here< /title> 
<descritpion> Another description goes here </description> 
<link >http://www.anotherlinkgoeshere.com </link> 
</item> 

</channel> 

Finally you will need to designate the file by indicating it is
an XML file by inserting xml and rss defining tags at the
beginning and </rss> at the very end. 

<?xml version="1.0"?> 
<rss version="2.0"> 
<channel> 

<title >The Channel Title Goes Here </title> 
<description> The explanation of how the items are related goes here
</description> 
<link> http://www.directoryoflinksgohere </link> 

<item> 
<title> The Title Goes Here </title> 
<descritpion> The description goes here </description> 
<link >http://www.linkgoeshere.com </link> 
</item> 

<item> 
<title> Another Title Goes Here </title> 
<descritpion> Another description goes here </description> 
<link> http://www.anotherlinkgoeshere.com </link> 
</item> 

</channel> 
</rss> 

When you save the file be sure to save it as an xml file. 

Warning 
If you create the file using Dreamweaver or a similar tool be 
careful that it does not strip out tags it feels are redundant. 
In order to be be an RSS feed, your file needs at bare minimum 
the tags that were discussed above, and the file will not be 
valid if tags are stripped out. 

I found a cool little free program that helped in xml file
creation called First Object XML Editor. 
http://www.firstobject.com/ 

Validation 
As my math teacher use to say, check your work! Once your file 
is complete and uploaded, enter it into the feed validator at 
http://feedvalidator.org 

Syndication / Submission 
If you've made it this far you are in good shape. I is time to 
"syndicate" your content! Submit your RSS feed (the xml file you 
created) to sites just like you would submit a web page. Some of 
the more popular sites that accept RSS files can be found under 
"Post RSS Feed". 
http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com/rss-feeds.html 

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Sharon Housley manages marketing for NotePage, Inc. 
http://www.notepage.net a company specializing in alphanumeric 
paging, SMS and wireless messaging software solutions. Other 
sites by Sharon can be found at
http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com,
http://www.messaging-software.net and http://www.monitoring-software.net 
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