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"Everybody's Talking About RSS"
By http://MCPromotionsPress.com
No matter if you call it "Really Simple Syndication"
or "Rich Site Summary," RSS is definitely all the
rage right now online. With email filtering, IP
blocking and the newest "Can Spam Act," everyone's
scampering for a better way to get their messages
across to their subscribers.
With RSS, the customers don't have to come to your
website or open their inboxes to get your latest news
and updates. Once they subscribe to your "feed," the
news comes to them automatically. But wait; I'm
getting ahead of myself here. Let's get back to the
basics.
RSS is an XML based format that originated with
Netscape. To use RSS, you must first create what's
called a "feed." This is basically a file which you
upload to your server. RSS feeds end with .rss
rdf or .xml extensions and can be created by hand.
An RSS file needs to include the headlines, links,
and summaries of the content you want to distribute.
Once a feed has been created, other computers can
subscribe to your "channel" and read your updates
using what's called an "Aggregator" or "news
reader."
Most feeds consist of a link with a short summary
to click on to read the entire article. To let
people know your site offers an RSS feed, you place
an orange XML icon on your site linked to the url
of your feed. You'll also want to list your feed
with various RSS search engines that exist just
for the purpose of collecting a database of feeds.
So what kinds of things can you turn into feeds?
I thought you'd never ask. Any area of your site
that changes on a regular basis is a good candidate.
Things like newsletters, news announcements, site
updates, anything that you update regularly.
If you have no idea how to create a feed, this
site will do it for you: http://MyRSS.com.
Just type in
the HTML page you wish to make a feed from and
it converts it to RSS for you automatically.
Another
great tool that will create a RSS feed for you
is http://feedster.com/builder.php?next=cfintro.
This works especially well if you need a feed of
your third party hosted Blog, for example Blogger.
There's also a script that will convert any HTML
doc into RSS -- Go to http://kalsey.com/tools/blogfeed/.
If you'd like to validate your feed, you can do
so at http://feedvalidator.org.
A News Reader is simply a software program that
brings what's new straight to you in an organized,
easy to read format.
Let's take a look at some of your options when
it comes to readers and what's available to you.
1) RSSReader: Free - it collects news
in the background and warns you with a popup in your system tray when there's
new information available.
2) Ampheta Desk:
Free, cross platform aggregator.
3) WildGrape:
For Windows - reads headlines from thousands of
sources. Free.
4) Sharp Reader:
Free reader for the .Net Framework created by
Luke Hutteman
5) Newz Crawler:
Web News Reader and browser. There's a two week
free trial. You can purchase it
for only $24.95.
6) Feed Demon:
Download a free trial or purchase for only $29.
Written by Nick Bradbury, creator of Top Style
and Homesite. Feed Demon is loaded with great
features.
7) Feed Reader:
Freeware - Windows app that supports all RSS
feeds and formats.
8) Blog Lines:
A web-based Blog and newsfeed reader. No
software to install to read your feeds; just
visit the site and log into your account.
9) Awasu:
Free Windows news reader that integrates with
Internet Explorer.
10) Feed Readers:
Lockergnome's offering in the news reader field.
Seven day free trial. Two versions available: pro
or standard with pricing ranging from $5.00 to
$15.00.
If these options aren't enough, you'll want
to check out the full list of
readers. If you'd
like to have feeds sent directly to your inbox
instead of downloading a reader, check out
http://rss.blogstreet.com/asp-rssbin/auth_rss.
Once you download a reader you need feeds to
subscribe to. Check out Syndic8 for
thousands of choices.
So now that you understand the technology, what are
the advantages and disadvantages of RSS? Here's a
big one: your subscribers don't have to give up their
email addresses, which is great for those with privacy
concerns. RSS puts control of subscriptions directly
in the hands of your users. When they wish to unsubscribe they just delete
the feed from their reader. It also reduces the risk of Spam accusations.
If
you're an ezine publisher you don't have to
worry about getting your messages past all of the
filters in place by users and ISP's.
The disadvantages are that you cannot include
personalization, and you have no way of knowing how
many people are subscribing to your feed. Also, at
this time, RSS may seem a bit complicated to the
novice user and it has not become widely adopted by
Web users.
If you haven't looked into RSS, now's the time to
consider this technology as another avenue for
reaching out to your website visitors, and keeping
them informed.
**********************************************
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http://www.ezineadauction.com/ebooks/greatezineads.pdf ************************************************
"If you're going to lead by example there has to be an element of calculated risk. You've got to challenge ideas and stir the pot by taking action."
Chris Pirillo, LockerGnome
