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Syndicating your Web content or gathering the freely syndicated content of others has never been so simple. Learn the basics about RSS feeds and leverage the information-sharing possibilities.
With the recent proliferation of RSS technology, syndicating your Web content or gathering the freely syndicated content of others has never been so simple. Learn the basics about RSS feeds and leverage the information-sharing possibilities available to your organization.
What Are RSS Feeds? Originally introduced by Netscape in 1999 (then later abandoned in 2001), RSS initially stood for "Rich Site Summary." Since then, other definitions have also emerged, including "Really Simple Syndication," coined by UserLand Software, as well as "(http://searchwebservices.techtarget.com/sDefinition/ 0,,sid26_gci213545,00.html) RDF Site Summary."
Simple to use, RSS feeds are short pieces of XML-based code that users can download from participating sites. This code constitutes headlines, which are actually updatable hyperlinks to the dynamic, freely syndicated content of those participating sites. At your end, interpreting the code requires an RSS reader or news aggregator. Because the code is XML, the RSS feeds can be supported across a wide variety of platforms.
Currently, the most avid suppliers of RSS feeds are news sites, such as (http://www.infoworld.com/) InfoWorld (see orange XML links on main page) and (http://slashdot.org/) Slashdot (see (http:// slashdot.org/index.rss) RSS file), as well as personal bloggers. However, just about any content that can be broken down into separate items can be syndicated using RSS.
Why Use RSS?
Draw attention to your material and increase exposure through syndication.
Alert customers to new products and press releases.
Enrich your own site's content with headlines and other relevant information from external sources.
Types of RSS Feeds: There are seven different variations of RSS feeds. As an individual interested in posting...