A Beginner"s Guide to Really Simple Syndication Or RSS
So let's begin this series with a simple question: what exactly is an RSS feeds and what does RSS mean? Put simply, RSS is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works-such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video-in a standardized format.
These feeds can be subscribed to and added to a software client running on your desktop.
The client is known as an aggregator and this functionality exists in Microsoft Outlook, Apple's Mail application, and on Linux with an application called Liferea.
A simple Google search will give you a lengthy list of RSS applications far beyond the few that I have just mentioned, but these are the few that I am familiar with.
What about a "cloud" or Internet based solution? Well Google has a product which works really well that is known as Google Reader.
OK, so you have told me about several desktop applications and one web based application but why would I want to use this RSS stuff for anyway? Let's say that you are starting to use the Internet more and more everyday as your main source for news about financial information and entertainment.
You open your web browser and start pulling up sites to find the information that you want to view.
This is all fine because that is what your computer and web browser were made for.
But what if you could bring all of the headlines and stories straight to your desktop or a web application and see them all in one spot? OK, that sounds great.
So I am using Windows and I have opened Outlook 2007, and in Outlook 2007 I see something for RSS but the links there appear to be only about Microsoft and Microsoft products! Yes you are right.
As by default, Microsoft Outlook has feeds pertaining to Microsoft products.
Just as if you are a Mac user you will see that Apple Mail opens with one RSS feed and it is relative to Apple products.
Let's review a few places to get feeds and then add a few feeds to Outlook 2007.
Here is a look at a list of news feeds that we can easily subscribe.
Simply click on a link to view the feeds.
These feeds can be subscribed to and added to a software client running on your desktop.
The client is known as an aggregator and this functionality exists in Microsoft Outlook, Apple's Mail application, and on Linux with an application called Liferea.
A simple Google search will give you a lengthy list of RSS applications far beyond the few that I have just mentioned, but these are the few that I am familiar with.
What about a "cloud" or Internet based solution? Well Google has a product which works really well that is known as Google Reader.
OK, so you have told me about several desktop applications and one web based application but why would I want to use this RSS stuff for anyway? Let's say that you are starting to use the Internet more and more everyday as your main source for news about financial information and entertainment.
You open your web browser and start pulling up sites to find the information that you want to view.
This is all fine because that is what your computer and web browser were made for.
But what if you could bring all of the headlines and stories straight to your desktop or a web application and see them all in one spot? OK, that sounds great.
So I am using Windows and I have opened Outlook 2007, and in Outlook 2007 I see something for RSS but the links there appear to be only about Microsoft and Microsoft products! Yes you are right.
As by default, Microsoft Outlook has feeds pertaining to Microsoft products.
Just as if you are a Mac user you will see that Apple Mail opens with one RSS feed and it is relative to Apple products.
Let's review a few places to get feeds and then add a few feeds to Outlook 2007.
Here is a look at a list of news feeds that we can easily subscribe.
Simply click on a link to view the feeds.
- NPR Feed List - Contains everything from Arts and Culture to World News.
- Yahoo Feed List - This is another site that covers a lot pf topics but also has a unique feature in that you can create custom RSS feeds with very little effort.
- CNN - This is a link to CNN's website feeds, and the Money feed is one that I personally subscribe.
