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February 5th, 2008 · No Comments · Uncategorized

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RSS (Really Simple Syndication)

It’s really simple … seriously.

What is RSS?
RSS (Rich Site Summary) is a format for delivering regularly changing web content. Many news-related sites, weblogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS Feed to whoever wants it.

Why RSS?
RSS solves a problem for people who regularly use the web. It allows you to easily stay informed by retrieving the latest content from the sites you are interested in. You save time by not needing to visit each site individually. You ensure your privacy, by not needing to join each site’s email newsletter. The number of sites offering RSSfeeds is growing rapidly and includes big names like YahooNews.

What do I need to do to read an RSS Feed?
Feed Reader or News Aggregator software allows you to grab the RSS feeds from various sites and display them for you to read and use.

Try out:
Netvibes
My Yahoo
Google Reader
Feed Reader
Feed Burner

Once you have your Feed Reader, it is a matter of finding sites that syndicate content and adding their RSS feed to the list of feeds your Feed Reader checks. Many sites display a small icon with the acronyms RSS, XML, or RDF to let you know a feed is available.

Put RSS Feeds on your website:
SpringWidgets
Feed Digest

Now just copy the code and paste it into the ‘code’ portion of your site in Dreamweaver. See me if you have any problems.

Worksheet adapted from http://www.whatisrss.com/

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