RSS basics from ionrss
Sunday
May 15, 2005
RSS is so great because it frees
you from having to deal with slow-performing websites, flashing ads,
poor site navigation and other hazards. You can have content sent to
you instead, like a well-organized piece of email. Because an RSS
reader can alert you to new entries, it’s great for following the news
or finding out when your competitor has posted something new on their
website.The only hard part is that you need an RSS reader (like a browser for
RSS) – or “aggregator” (because the software pulls together various
feeds). There are a bunch of different ones out there, but the easiest
ones to use are the ones that attach to your email client (like Outlook
or Thunderbird). This means that your email client includes a special
set of folders for RSS. Each folder will be filled with relevant news
that you’ve specifically tailored for your needs.
I personally recommend using a web-based RSS aggregator. This way
you won’t be limited to reading your feeds using certain
clients/machines only. Downside is that you’d need to be online
to be able to read. At any rate, many feeds only offer article
summaries so you’d have to go online anyway to view the full post.
And that’s from the point of view of the reader. From an author’s
perspective, RSS gives him/her the possibility of reaching out to a
larger audience, since syndication and hence a larger content
distribution network, is the essence of RSS after all.





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