Know About RSS - A Powerful Way to Distribute Headlines

Earlier if we want to keep updated ourselves with the articles of our choice or products of our interest ,we had to visit all the websites one by one - a very frustrating task.Or we had to subscribe to their Newsletters via E-mail - which is cumbersome.

So,how do we get information about our interests which is accurate,updated and which changes at irregular intervals?The solution is "RSS".RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication".It is an easy way to distribute updated content/headlines to wide number of people.

How does RSS work?
RSS works like this

• The website authors maintain a list of headlines on their website.
  
• This list of headlines is called an "RSS Feed".
  
• In order to read those feeds and organize them we have a special program(actually its an application) called "RSS aggregators".
  

How would I know whether a website offers its headlines as a feed?
Typically ,a website which offers RSS feed will have any one of the following

• An orange button with the letters "XML" or "RSS"
  
• A link such as "Syndicate this Site"
  
• Buttons of different "RSS aggregators".
  

If you use firefox you can find an orange button in the address bar which indicates that site provides RSS feeds.

In case of button or link,we have to right click and copy the link with "copy link location" option.Once we have the link ,we have to submit it to RSS aggregator program.

Where can I get RSS aggregator program?
RSS aggregators are of two types

• Desktop based(needs to be downloaded) such as FeedReader
  
• Web based(we should register with it) such as Bloglines
  

In both the cases we have to submit the feed link ( which we got from the website of our choice ) in their respective add sections.Now ,the RSS aggregators do their job of collecting headlines from the website.

What if I don't want to receive feeds anymore?
You can unsubscribe from any feed at anytime in case you don't like it and don't want to receive headlines anymore from a particular site.

Advantages:

• No need to visit each and every site.
  
• Updated content.
  
• Fast and reliable.
  
• All related information at a single place.
  

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