® Www.sssdirect.com

Sssdirect.com - What Is RSS?

RSS is technology - a simple software program - that allows you to access web and blog content automatically. The acronym's most popular translation is "Really Simple Syndication. Once your browser or computer has an RSS reader on board, you can subscribe to any number of RSS "feeds." A feed is simply a way in which a reader may subscribe to website content - most commonly blogs or news sites. A news site, for example, may list their latest headlines or entire articles in their feed every time a new article is published. A blog would publish this feed as a series of recent posts.

Feeds are published by millions of publishers, from small individuals to large organizations like Newsweek. The value of a feed is that it brings the most current site content to you in a format that is easily scanned; further, you are spared the task of visiting each source site each day. This is typically done through the use of what is called an 'aggregator' or 'feed reader'.

Feed readers or RSS readers, are software programs that run on your computer (or PDA or phone); let you easily subscribe to feeds, and allow you to read through them efficiently. Some are relatively simple, showing the headline and summary. The fancier ones often work with (or in) your browser to make viewing the material look much like the source page. Once you have a reader on your computer, subscribing to a feed with is an easy click or drag from your browser. Sites that provide RSS feeds will usually have a button for that purpose.

There are several RSS feed formats as well as one with an entirely different methodology called Atom. Atom has become popular with some bloggers and blogging tools. Some aggregators can read both. The other acronyms you will see in "feedspeak" are XML, which stands for 'extensible markup language' and is the code standard for these simple text feeds. An 'OPML" file is a format for indexing hierarchical feed lists. If you dive into this web habit in a big way, your aggregator or reader may keep your subscription list in an OPML file.

An RSS feed is a great method for staying abreast of issues and topics that interest you. There are a number of feed "libraries," so to speak, from which you can learn what's out there in your areas of interest. Google has a built-in reader that makes the subscription process easy, as does Yahoo. Firefox has a downloadable extension for the purpose of aggregating RSS feeds, as well as a default ability to save RSS feeds as "live bookmarks" that update via the RSS feed. You can download a number of stand alone readers and aggregators; you can find them through a simple web search.

The whole RSS "movement" is a step towards utilizing the Internet more efficiently. The trick is to avoid overloading your email inbox with daily reports that you end up ignoring most of the time. For that purpose, there are sites like Feedster that will search millions of RSS feeds for articles that are relevant to your interests. Like any search tool, however, these services are hit and miss. They are still working off keywords and sometimes what they find is relevant, sometimes not. But if you want daily news broken into categories, it's great technology once you learn how to make it work for you.


Tags: Website Hosting, Rss, Really, Simple, Syndication, Features, Aggregators, Readers, Information, Web-hosting

Would You Make A Good Franchisee?

Would you make a good franchisee? This article seeks to help the potential franchisee identify their suitability working for themselves via a franchise or indeed a small business. An acronym I like to use in business is Riyot (REPENT IN YOUR OWN TIME),

Why To Choose Paid Hosting Instead Of Free?

Many of you faced with the question today of having a web site. And after developing your site you will probably starting to find good free hosting. What is the catch with the free hosting providers?

Why Every Smart Marketer Should Have Their Own Information Product:

There are lots of reasons why you should be selling your own information products online. If you sell standard products but don't have a lot of money to invest in new stock or inventory then Information products allow you to add a new product with little

Which Hosting Options Do You Really Need For Your Website ?

Every Hosting Provider offers you a mariad of options. How do you know what you need, and what you don't need. Find out what all those options are, and how to avoid paying for what your don't use.

When Should You Hire A SEO Company?

The services of an SEO company have been most needed in recent years. Optimizing your site for search engines to achieve higher placement in search results will definitely increase traffic into your site, increase your number of customers and eventually i

What SEO Services Can Do For Your Online Business

What are SEO services? Well, you have surely heard about the entire buzz going on about SEO services. Let's try to explain this concept from the very beginning. So you probably have a website now and are eager to get everything going in your online busine

What Marketers Are Saying About "RSS To Blogs"

I have been reading a lot about the RSS To Blog program. This is a program that automatically updates your blog to make sure your website has a stream of new posts and information even if you don't lift a finger. The reason this is so important and useful

What Is Reseller Web Hosting?

Introduction Shared and Reseller web hosting have many similarities, many web hosts offer both shared and reseller hosting. The main difference between the two are in the names ‘shared', you are sharing resources, which is the same for ‘reseller' in a wa

What Is Blogging - A Simple Explanation

With the recent rise in advanced social networking websites like MySpace, FaceBook, and Xanga, where the young and would-be cool like to spend their time, much in the way they congregate at their local malls, the personal blog as a means of communicating

What Is A SEO Expert And What He Does

Most of for profit firms based on the internet will need a SEO expert to continually monitor and revise the sites that they currently have. Search engine optimization is one way to marketing the site and expose it Internet users and to help it rank higher

Web Design Work And How To Price The Services

One of the important aspects that your web design company has to consider to a great extent is to know just how much they will charge for services. If you are part of a web design company, this problem is most likely not part of your coverage and you will

Web Design Vs. Print Design: How To Find The Middle Ground

There are a number of web designers who come up with print backgrounds for the sites that they make. These are most likely those who used to be print designers before joining the web design company they are part of now, or they are simply used to the cont

Web Design Takes On Back Button And How To Take Advantage Of It

As a web designer, you should know that the Back Button is one of the most vital buttons found on any web page. You should not rely on your web design company to inform you about this. If you have been browsing through web design companies and sites for a

Web Design Series- Dreamweaver 8 And CS3: What's The Difference?

So you now have the Dreamweaver 8 and you are just not quite sure whether your web design company is willing to shell out some more to upgrade to the latest CS3 version. This is actually a challenging decision to make for your web design company. As a web

Web Design Guide To Creating Better Links

Needless to say, links are one of the most vital parts of a web page. Your web design company will definitely require you to come up with links in the sites you make to please your clients better. When people think of site contents, what generally comes t