Business Features
What is RSS?
RSS feeds by themselves don’t do much. If you view one in most browsers, you’ll see the raw XML, which is roughly human-readable, but intended for computer programs. There a number of applications for RSS feeds; the most popular ones are:
- displaying headlines on other websites
- displaying headlines from other websites, which is what Rotherhamweb plans to do
- search engines
- aggregating RSS feeds from multiple websites
- showing website updates
We hope that the fact that you can come along to Rotherhamweb and view your favourite headlines all together, will make you a regular visitor to the site.
We will also use RSS to post updates to this website.
What next?
RSS feeds bring automatically updated information straight to your desktop. You can monitor news, job listings, personals, and updates. Many more sites now offer feeds, which you can identify by a small orange button , like the one on our front page, that says either RSS or XML. However, if you click one of these links, you will most likely get a page full of code in your browser. You will need an RSS reader or aggregator to read the feed.
Content published in an RSS feed is typically set up to send out notifications whenever new material is available. This makes the new content immediately available to feed readers and RSS search engines.
Instead of opening your Web browser when you sit down at the computer, you open your news feed reader, usually a 2- or 3 paned window that allows you to see at a glance which sites have added new content, and to scan clickable headlines and summaries of that content. This means you can look at fresh information of say, your favourite 10 to 15 sites at a glance.
RSS Aggregators
Probably the most popular use for RSS is in RSS aggregators. Also known as newsreaders and news aggregators, these are dedicated programs which allow you to read RSS files.
One of the most popular online aggregators is Bloglines. Other suggestions are: NewsGator, Feed Demon, SharpReader. For Mac users, NetNewsWire Alternatively - ask Google !
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