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| RSS Technology |
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| What is
RSS? |
| The Internet today contains
a wealth of information. Avid Internet users
visit many interesting websites and read many
articles. Information and web pages make their
way in to the favorite folder for later viewing.
Over the course of time, re-visiting these
bookmarks becomes a major task for users especially
as the number of bookmarks grows. A better
technique for users is to automatically receive
information about updates to their favorite
websites. |
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| Many websites have recognized
this problem and have started providing information
in a common format. RSS is a web content syndication
format. It is a lightweight XML format designed
for syndicating (distributing) information.
Although RSS was initially conceived as a
format for syndicating news, anything that
can be broken down into discrete items can
be syndicated via RSS. |
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| Many websites publish content,
which they would like to share with others.
RSS provides a way for websites to distribute
their content outside of a web browser. RSS
is an easy way to keep you automatically up
to date on websites you visit regularly. RSS
files do not have a common file extension,
although they frequently end in .XML, .RSS,
or .RDF (note that other extensions may also
be used). |
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| How to Read RSS Feeds? |
| Internet users can employ
special software, like newsreaders and RSS-aggregators,
to organize RSS feeds and get automatic updates.
Products like Active
Web Reader allow you to read RSS files.
Such types of programs go beyond simply reading.
They also organize RSS feeds, manage updates,
monitor website changes and search for information
online. They can keep you automatically updated
on the latest changes by checking RSS feeds
and displaying items from them. |
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| RSS aggregators are set
up to check for updates periodically from
the feeds to which you subscribe, usually
once every day. In other words, the information
comes to you, rather than you having to go
to the websites yourself. This saves a tremendous
amount of time. In addition, you can read
many more feeds in the same amount of time.
Many people read several hundred feeds. That
just would not be feasible without an RSS
aggregator. Additionally, you avoid all the
non-new information on a web page, including
the ads, menus, etc. |
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| How to find RSS feeds
for a website? |
Go to the website whose
RSS feed you are looking for. If it has one,
then it probably includes a link to it. Try
looking on the page’s menu (usually
left side or right side) and the footer. Most
often websites advertise RSS feeds with small
icons. The most common is an XML icon like
this  ,
but there are a number of variations of labels
(RSS, RSS2, XML, RDF, Atom), color, and size,
such as 
and  .
Other times, there may not be an image, but
text with one of those labels, or a link labeled
“Syndicate this site.” |
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| Active Web Reader also provides
a way to find RSS feeds automatically while
browsing web pages through a feature called
RSS Auto Discovery. The software provides
a direct method to select discovered feeds
and organize them.Active Web Reader also provides
a way to find RSS feeds automatically while
browsing web pages through a feature called
RSS Auto Discovery. The software provides
a direct method to select discovered feeds
and organize them. |
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