What You Should Know About

Copyright 2005 John Doetsch,
RSS, also known as Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication, has been used for years by online visitors. However, it is only recently started to gain popularity among webmasters as a means to provide visitors with constantly updated content. These feeds were originally designed to deliver updated news faster, but they have since evolved to nearly instantaneous updates of many types of information. Growing sites can take advantage of RSS feeds, since they allow for fresh copy is updated regularly online. When RSS feeds are inserted into Web pages, provides a steady stream of syndicated content is updated on an ongoing basis. Most RSS feeds consist of a heading, content summary and a link to the actual online article. They are typically consist in XML, a markup language similar to HTML, allow webmasters to manipulate and integrate the new copy into their existing site pages. The increased popularity of these RSS feeds enjoyed online sites as they have helped to drive increased traffic and Search engine ranking results. The fact that the syndicated content changes continuously in the RSS feeds means that search engine spiders probably visit and index your site pages more often. RSS feeds also keep webmasters from having to worry about that update their content, and visitors can rely on fresh articles are available for reading each time they want. Articles are also easy to find on RSS feeds, as they can be categorized for easy navigation. This increases the chances of receiving visitors from other sites. While modern technology has made to embed RSS feeds on a Web site easier, contributing content to RSS feeds is still a bit more complex. You can effectively post copy on RSS feeds, you first need an RSS program that will allow you to format your content for syndication. If you are a professional web developer, for example, you might want to create your own XML files to display content. This option allows more flexibility in the way content is displayed. If you are missing the online knowledge to understand how you are using XML, you can invest in one of the many RSS software programs that allow users to create and publish syndicated content without using any XML language at all. One of the most popular programs is FeedForAll, which is an inexpensive and yet powerful tool for developing and maintaining an RSS feed. This programme, and others like it, your users are using their own syndicated content, or download existing feeds from the Internet. It also gives users the ability to manually edit their Web site to include images and colors that you can create a more exciting online experience for customers. As the need for the Internet provides instant access to a wide range of information continue to grow, is RSS feeds become an important component of information distribution. It is likely that the RSS feeds will serve as an important tool for sharing information on the Internet in the coming years and could, in the not-too-distant future, even begin to compete emails as the preferred method for knowledge sharing. Therefore, to understand how best to take advantage of RSS feeds on your Web site has a lasting and positive impact on the company's growth. About the author:
John Doetsch, is an author and founder of Websition.com where you will find additional articles and website content written by the Internet's most talented writers.

RSS won the battle
RSS seems to have captured last continues to be the industry syndication standard.

Microsoft's inclusion of RSS into the newest version of Internet Explorer and reports that RSS will be in the Longhorns upcoming release seems to be the final nail in the coffin of the Atom specification. Even Atom's steadfast supporter Google, seems to have seen the light. Google had previously acquired Blogger, a popular blogging tool, uses the Atom specification to publish the contents of blogs created on Blogger platform. In the past Google had strategically steered clear of endorsing the RSS specification hoping that Atom would take hold.

Google's latest new service that allows web surfers to monitor Google News RSS-or Atom-feeds, seems to be a confirmation, perhaps in purchasing Blogger, they chose the wrong specification.

The adoption of a syndication standard was slowed by the struggle between Atom and RSS. Two defined syndication standards vying for the number one position. In an IT industry that clearly favors single standard solutions, Atom supporters claimed added flexibility, but RSS ' wide sweeping support from heavy hitters like Microsoft, Apple and Yahoo. Along with the popularity of shows increase in podcasting, which is based on the RSS 2.0 specification are sealed the fate of the future syndication standard.

History and the relationship between RSS and Atom is a sordid tale, which has impeded the progress of an online RSS standard. Now that the leader has been defined their is little in the way of RSS ' growth. Businesses leery of becoming involved in a fight for standards now embracing RSS as a communication channel.

It is clear that those who have lined up behind RSS as the leading specification are the winners.

Strangely enough, while those entrenched in the industry recognises the difficulties of a double standard, users rarely see a difference in feeds created using the Atom and RSS standards. Most popular RSS readers support reading feeds in both formats. Although the purpose of RSS and Atom is the same, is the specification itself is very different, which makes it difficult and time consuming for tool developers to move between the two standard.

Now that Atom attempts to replace RSS has fallen flat, see Syndication arena will probably significant innovation and progress.

Sized enterprises taking advantage of RSS ' extendibility using namespaces adding needed tags. Apple has done this with iTunes, Microsoft for ordered lists, and Yahoo with MediaRSS. All use the same basic RSS 2.0 format, but supports defined RSS ' future is bright with many companies working proactively to unite once divided standard.

About the author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing and publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for FeedForDev http://www.feedfordev.com an RSS element for developers. In addition Sharon manages marketing for Note Page http://www.notepage.net a wireless text messaging software company.

FeedForAll
RSS feed creation tool for webmasters and content providers!

RSS Submit
Automate your rss submission. Automatically send your feeds!

rss2html
RSS to HTML script to display RSS on a website.

Audio Recording Software
Record and edit audio files with the software.

-Blog feed

-Article feed

RSS Syndication

RSS Syndication or RSS Newsfeeds (RSS Feeds for short) refer to the same. There are two parts in the process, the publisher and the consumer. Publisher produces a small text file in a special format that displays the title and address of an article or resource published on the World Wide Web. The consumer uses a program, usually called an aggregator to read and display the contents of this simple text file with links to the Web page. Or the consumer can visit a Web site that contains a news reader program, and view the results as a Web page. Members of Yahoo.com, for example, can set their personal My Yahoo pages to show the contents of any RSS feeds you select.It is all there is to it. Simple. Therefore, some say RSS stands for ' Really Simple Syndication. " Some confusion has arisen because an RSS feed can be used in several ways. Call it a newsfeed is the first error, since RSS is used for much more than news. The most common situation is for the RSS elements must have a short title, create a link to the original page referred to, and a brief description of the contents of this Web page. But other people also the complete contents of their resource directly in the RSS feed. So feed can contain a graphical image of an animated film, an entire post to a weblog (or blog), or the complete contents of a newsletter, rather than just a link back to these resources on a Web site. Other sites omit the description, and only list titles linked back to their home page. And some versions of RSS, you can omit the title, as long as you have a description.Talk about the ' versions ' of RSS, there is a source of even more confusion. RSS began with version 0.93, and was called the ' RDF Site Summary "--RDF refers to" Resource Description Framework, "method for marking different parts of the file. This early version was updated and modified through various editions, including 0.91, 0.92, 0.93, 0.94, and they began to call RSS ' Really Simple Syndication. " Then someone came along with a different format, a little more complicated, and called it RSS version 1.0. Supporters of version 0.94 like not implied that 1.0 or otherwise was an advance on 0.94 when in reality it was a completely different format, so they came up with the version 2.0 which was an improved version of 0.94, but still, in contrast to 1.0. Rather than take sides in this quarrel, another came up with their own version and called the Atom, to distance themselves from RSS-battle. Another developed blogrolls using OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language). Most of these formats are loosely or strictly based on XML, overall mark-up scheme. None of this confusion method and purpose has helped spread this really useful tool. Most RSS aggregators can read any of these formats, so the situation is not as hopeless as it may seem, but many people still throw it all out, when they cannot find out exactly how it is supposed to work. At http://www.SharedRSS.com/we are using version 1.0, because it is approved by the W3C as being supportive ' Semantic Web '. Casual user, however, is really not important version. SharedRSS is a simple Web site that performs a very strong feature ... it brings the benefits of RSS syndication to all those who publish home pages, but adding new material all too rarely justify having their own RSS feed. RSS Syndication was designed to help people find information about new content on the Internet long before the search engines come to find it makes it easy for people to find out about new content that interests themwithout having to return to the search engines and Wade through all the material you have seen before. For sites with content changes often, it has worked well for them to create their own RSS feed and update it as new content is added to their website. But what about all the websites that add only an occasional new article or story to their site, or publish a newsletter once per month? Or those who just can't take time to figure the details formatting an RSS feed? An RSS feed, only updated once every few months is of negligible value; very few people want to add it to their search list in their aggregator. Shared RSS solves this problem by mixing together articles from various sites covers the same topic, and allow them to announce the availability of their new material in the feed is shared with other publish on the same subject. This makes the feeds more useful for consumers so that they are more inclined to add the link to their aggregator. It is of benefit to the Publisher of make more people aware of their material, as soon as it is put online. ________________________________________________
Andrew j. Morris is the owner and creator of SharedRSS--a site that allows for all owners of Web sites to publish their newly added material for free. http://www.sharedrss.com/________________________________________________

FeedForAll
RSS feed creation tool for webmasters and content providers!

RSS Submit
Automate your rss submission. Automatically send your feeds!

rss2html
RSS to HTML script to display RSS on a website.

Audio Recording Software
Record and edit audio files with the software.

-Blog feed

-Article feed