Powerful Stuff. RSS XML Feeds and Newsreader Work for You
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What Is an RSS Feed?
You’ve seen, on lots of web pages, those little orange chicklet buttons that say "RSS XML" and "Subscribe Here." They are links to important web pages called RSS feeds. They will help you get more out of the Internet. RSS feeds keep you informed of what’s new on your favorite sites. The RSS XML feed is powerful stuff.
The RSS feed is a great time-saver, particularly if you follow a number of sites, or do research on the web. It is no longer necessary to surf through all your favorite sites to find new postings. Instead, subscribe to their RSS feeds, and you will automatically be kept up to date.
RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication and XML is the language used for it. XML stands for extensible markup language. An RSS feed is just a website file written in XML language. Many websites provide an RSS feed to announce the posting of a new page. A website is said to be syndicated when it has an RSS feed available.
What Is a Newsreader?
A newsreader is a software tool that keeps track of the RSS feeds from sites you want to follow. Your newsreader can be personalized to track as many feeds as you like. When you add the web address of a site feed to your newsreader, you are "subscribing" to the feed.
Your RSS newsreader is also called an RSS aggregator, a feed aggregator or an RSS reader.
Newsreaders are easy to use. You can download newsreader software that runs on your own computer, similar to a browser. Or you can use a free online newsreader, like My Yahoo!, Goggle’s home page or the Google Sidebar on the Google desktop. An online newsreader has the advantage that you can access it from any computer.
The day is coming when your email program and your Web browser will include a newsreader as a standard feature. Indeed, the Firefox browser and Thunderbird email reader are ahead of the curve and already include this feature.
Here’s a side note on the use of the term newsreader. The Internet includes a long-standing moderated bulletin board system, called Usenet newsgroups, which operates somewhat like blog comments. The program that accesses these newsgroups is also called a newsreader, but it’s not to be confused with an RSS feed newsreader.
How to Subscribe to an RSS feed
Step 1. Go to a favorite website. Click the RSS button and you will probably pull up a page named feed.xml or something similar. In your browser, you will see a text page of XML code. The first line of XML text might say “<?xml version="1.0"?>” Ignore the XML code. The address of the feed page is what you need. Just copy the URL of this feed page from your browser address box. To copy the URL, right-click on the address box and choose “Copy” from the pop-up menu.
Step 2. Pull up your computer newsreader or your online newsreader. Click the button that says Add Content, or Add Content by URL. The page opens up a box for the URL you just copied. Right click in the box, select “Paste” from the pop-up menu. Then click the “ADD” button. Now you’re good to go. You have subscribed to the feed of the website. Your newsreader will read the XML code of the feed for you. The newsreader will check the feed for new entries, so you can stay up to date with new postings on the site.. You can click on any entry in the feed and zip directly to the page you want.
Creating an RSS Feed
The easiest way for newbies to create an RSS Feed for a site or a blog is to hijack another feed and modify it. Let’s hijack the Surfer Sam feed, which is a file named feed.xml located in the main directory of the site.
Here is the feed, line by line, in all its glory.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<rss version="2.0">
<channel>
<title>Surfer Sam and Friends</title>
<description>Funny jokes and pix, sharp blogs, games, travel, news, free ecards, horoscope. Enjoy yourself. Life's a beach!!</description>
<link>http://www.surfersam.com</link>
<item>
<title>The Funny Side of the Street. Only in America will you get these gags.</title>
<description> Why doesn't Tarzan have a beard? Why isn't there mouse flavored cat food? Why does Superman stop bullets with his chest, but duck if you throw a revolver at him?</description>
<link>http://www.surfersam.com/friends/street.htm</link>
<guid>http://www.surfersam.com/friends/street.htm</guid>
</item>
<item>
<title>Funny Redneck Jokes!</title>
<description>There's a little Redneck in all of us. Sasha's collection of outrageous Redneck jokes and pix brings us closer to our roots. A big hit!</description>
<link>http://www.surfersam.com/sasha.htm</link>
<guid>http://www.surfersam.com/sasha.htm</guid>
</item>
</channel>
</rss>
Notice how the XML code uses tags similar to HTML? Copy this feed into any simple text editor like Notepad to create your RSS feed. Change the channel title, channel description and channel link to refer to your own site.
The content between the tags <item> and </item> refer to one page of your site. You can use your HTML page title as your XML item title if you wish. And the HTML description tag can provide ideas for the XML item description. Notice that the item link is the location of the new page. When you have entered your items, finish the file with the end of channel tag </channel> and the end of RSS tag </rss>. You should save the feed as a file with the extension xml. Often the file name “feed.xml” is used. Upload your feed file to the root directory of your web server.
Verifying your RSS Feed
You’ll want to be sure that your feed is correct. Once your feed is online, a convenient website, feedvalidator.org, will test and validate your feed in a jiffy. If there are errors, you’ll get diagnostic help.
Finally, you’ll want to check that the links to your pages are working. To do this, power up your newsreader, and add your new feed to it. From your newsreader, click each link in the feed. That’s it. You have successfully syndicated your website or blog.
Using your RSS Feed to Build Traffic
Now that you have an RSS feed, you’ll want to publicize it on your website. A link to your feed page with the familiar orange RSS/XML image will let visitors find your feed and subscribe to it. Your feed will gradually build interest and traffic as site visitors subscribe to your feed.
You can be proactive in building traffic, too. Notify the major feed directories every time that your feed is updated. This notification is called “pinging.” The website www.pingoat.com will ping dozens of the major directories for you. All it requires is the URL of your feed file.
I hope you have many happy hours browsing the web via your RSS newsreader. I wish you a very happy day.
----- Surfer Sam
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Howdy! Welcome to Surfer Sam and Friends. Our Free Online Magazine gives you blogs, funny jokes, famous quotes, funny stories, clean funny pictures, games, travel and sage advice. We've also got free ecards - Surfer Cards - for you to email. So enjoy yourself here. Chill out and relax. Meet the gang. And thanks for helping out, mate. Life's a beach!
 
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