RSS Information

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Tue 10 Oct 2006

Making The Most Of RSS

Posted by Peter under RSS Information , SEO Articles , SEO Tutorial
1 Comment 

A lot of people online nowadays don’t know much about RSS feeds. If you’re looking for current information or if you want to provide information, you may be missing out on a great tool. RSS i.e Real simple syndication is a quite popular and easy way to distribute content via the Internet.

There are a different opinions as to what RSS exactly stands for, but basically what one needs to know is that RSS allows the content from a website to be syndicated. For visitors, this makes it easier to keep up with what is happening on a website; for webmasters it provides one more way to keep in contact with the site’s visitors.

People who are not familiar with RSS might have used it already. Yahoo, MSN and Google all have pages you can personalize to include information that is of interest to you. RSS is how this is generally done. With each of these services there are items they have listed that you can easily add as well as a way for you to select an RSS feed so that exactly the things you are interested in appear on your page.

One of the most common use of RSS feeds is in blogs. The feed is a very popular way to encourage people to come back and visit regularly, as they are automatically notified of new and updated content.

Some websites also use RSS as a supplement to email newsletters. The advantages of RSS for the users is that it is easy to subscribe or unsubscribe to, and there is no spam. For the webmasters, RSS ensures that their messages do not fall prey to spam filters or spam complaints.

Subscribing to an RSS feed is very easy if you have a My Yahoo, My MSN or a personalized Google homepage. Some sites have buttons you just click; other times you need to get the URL of the RSS feed, then find where you add content to your pages and put in the URL.

You might also choose to use a feed reader on your computer. There are free and paid versions; a quick search on your favorite search engine should find one that is suitable to your needs. If you already have a website and want to take advantage of RSS, there are several possibilities. One is, of course, a blog. Content management systems such as Joomla also provide you with an RSS feed for people to subscribe to. You can also create an RSS feed on your own, although that requires more effort.

RSS is really helpful in making content more accessible. A well planned RSS feed benefits both webmasters and visitors. Choose a way that is easy for you to subscribe to RSS feeds and let the benefits come to you.

 

Wed 3 May 2006

What Kind of Information Can be Delivered in RSS Feeds

Posted by racheal under Blogging , RSS Information
No Comments 

Blogs Feed

Many blogs are catalogued in an RSS feed, with each blog entry summarized as a feed item. This makes it easy for visitors to scan blog posts for items of interest.

Article Feed

Articles are often placed into feeds to alert readers when new articles and content are available. The feed entry is typically an article summary or introduction. Readers can then ascertain if the article is of interest and read further.

Forum Feed

Many forums now have add-ons that allow participants to receive forum posts via RSS. The RSS feeds often will show the latest discussion topics; if users are interested they simply click to enter the forum to participate in the discussion. As the topic is updated they will see new entries in the RSS feed.

Schedule Feed

Schools, clubs and organizations will often use feeds to communicate meeting times, places and events that might be occurring. The RSS feeds are often used to publicize events notify the community of schedule changes or meeting agendas.

Discounts / Specials Feed

Retail and online stores have begun using RSS feeds to deliver their latest specials and discounted offers. Some online retailers have taken this step further, allowing users to create their own feeds based on keywords or phrases.

 

Wed 3 May 2006

Benefits of using RSS feeds

Posted by Peter under RSS Information
1 Comment 

RSS provides headlines and summaries of information in a concise and standardized way.

Benefits for Publishers

1.) Avoid Spam Filters
Statisticians estimate that 70% of the emails transferred each day are spam. With that statistic, even opt-in users risk losing valuable messages in the clutter of spam. RSS feeds effectively nullify spam as an issue. Requesting feeds allow users to maintain complete control over the content they view. Users can easily opt-in and out of feeds that provide content of interest or importance.

2.) Expanded Reach
RSS allows publishers to reach a number of new and different markets that typically are less crowded with competition. Many small businesses are often slow to adopt or learn new technologies, giving businesses that lead the way a competitive advantage.

3.) Content Syndication
Syndication of feeds increases exposure.

4.) Repeat Visitors
RSS is all about repeat visitors. Users who have previously visited a site often have a stronger connection to the site and are more likely to purchase or trust the information on the site.

5.) Free web traffic
RSS is in a unique position to bring free traffic because they are content-driven, and if they include interesting or valuable information, it will pique the curiosity of web-surfers and entice them to visit a particular site.

6.) Less Effort
Newsletters and Ezines bring visitors, but the effort involved in creating, distributing and maintaining a newsletter can be a burden. Maintaining the list, ensuring the list is clean, growing the subscriber base, updating and removing bad e-mail addresses, all take time. RSS feeds are not burdened with such issues. There are easy-to-use RSS feed creation tools that require little effort, allowing publishers to recycle content, often simply cutting and pasting into RSS feed creation software.

 

Mon 1 May 2006

Some Benefits Of RSS…

Posted by Alice under RSS Information
[2] Comments 

1. It gives you the latest updates. Whether it is about the weather, new music, software upgrade, local news, or a new posting from a rarely-updates site learn about the latest as soon as it comes out.2. It saves on surfing time. Since an RSS feed provides a summary of the related article, it saves the user’s time by helping s/he decide on which items to prioritize when reading or browsing the net.

2. It gives the power of subscription to the user. Users are given a free-hand on which websites to subscribe in their RSS aggregators which they can change at any time they decide differently.

3. It lessens the clutter in your inbox. Although your email address will be required to enjoy the services of online RSS aggregators, RSS does not use your email address to send the updates.

4. It is spam free. Unlike email subscriptions, RSS does not make use of your email address to send updates thus your privacy is kept safe from spam mails.

5. Unsubscribing is hassle-free. Unlike email subscriptions where the user is asked questions on why s/he is unsubscribing and then the user would be asked to confirm unsubscribing, all you have to do is to delete the RSS feed from your aggregator.

6. It can be used as an advertising or marketing tool. Users who subscribe or syndicate product websites receive the latest news on products and services without the website sending spam mail. This is advantageous to both the web user and the website owner since advertising becomes targeted; those who are actually interested in their products are kept posted.

 

Sat 29 Apr 2006

Using RSS to Increase your Page Rank

Posted by Peter under RSS Information
1 Comment 

Everyday millions of dollars and hours are spent on how to increase a website’s traffic. There is so much demand for traffic solutions that people will go to any extent, either ethical or unethical means to get a higher ranking in search engine.

RSS is a standard format for sharing your content instantly with users and other websites. You can improve your sites content without writing on your own. You can add to content to your site easily if someone offers you RSS feed of their site. This will give good and updated content to your site and it will help in increasing the no. of visitors to your site.

RSS feeds provide good, relevant content for a website. There are many RSS publishers with themed content, which will provide you variety to choose from. It helps to get search engines to crawl your site more frequently. It provides new and fresh content, when new content is added the old content drops off.

RSS feeds are more useful for getting your newsletters, articles, blog and other people’s sites and which is very powerful.

 

Sat 29 Apr 2006

Why Should You use RSS?

Posted by Alice under RSS Information
1 Comment 

Some reasons To Use RSS

1. Readers can opt-into feeds

Like autoresponders, RSS allows your prospects to opt-into the feeds they are interested in and also be able to opt-out when they want to through their RSS feeds reader. It is almost similar to building a list of subscribers!

2. You don’t have to maintain an RSS feed.

This is a burden-take-off for savvy and busy Internet marketers as RSS is free to use and it doesn’t require that much effort as building a list. Of course, everything has its pros and cons. When you don’t need to spend time for your opt-ins, you won’t have a closer relationship with them and it makes promoting your product much harder.

3. You have the ability to Syndicate your content.

This is the true power of RSS. It gives you the ability to Syndicate your content - and e-mail your subscribers instantly letting your them know about your content right away.

4. Promotions and sales.

Again, similar to an autoresponder RSS lets you broadcast your promotions to your subscribers. This way, you can earn money through your RSS feeds as well.

5. No filter problems.

Every RSS feed passes through e-mail filters. You won’t have to worry about your message being filtered anymore while syndicating an article. All your messages are delivered 100% to your subscribers.

6. No spam complaints.

People who want to subscribe for your RSS feeds will need to do it with their RSS reader. They will need to abide by the Privacy Policy that you are allowed to send them your syndication anytime without being called spamming.

 

Fri 28 Apr 2006

What Do You Mean By RSS….?

Posted by Alice under RSS Information
No Comments 

The best course of action to take sometimes isn’t clear until you’ve listed and considered your alternatives. The following paragraphs should help clue you in to what the experts think is significant.

1 What does RSS mean?

RSS may mean three different things. The original RSS (RDF Site Summary RSS 0.9) was developed by Dan Libby for Netscape. After a couple of months, they produced a simpler and easier-to-use version called Rich Site Summary or RSS 0.91. But they later lost interest, leaving it without an owner. As more and more users were using RSS, Winer made an adapted version of RSS 0.91 for Userland, claiming it as his own. Later in 2005, Microsoft developed Really Simple Syndication in relation to its Simple Sharing Extensions.

2 What is RSS?

RSS is a XML file format for syndicating content and news in the web. It is usually used by websites that constantly need to update their content regularly such as news websites (CNN, BBC and Reuters) and weblogs. Since it essentially gives one’s webpage more traffic, it is now more widely used in marketing, web publications and virus reports. Today, large and small websites alike are usually RSS-enabled. For example, you’re an avid fan of baseball and you want to share something recent about one of the players. Other than content, you can also attach multimedia files, like videos or pictures. By using RSS feeds, other Internet users subscribed to RSS-enabled sites can read your “headline” for free. They can also track for changes and updates using news aggregators, which will be discussed later on. How does RSS work? To be able to use RSS, you first have to download a software (content management system), by which XML format can be read. The title and, excerpt of the article, and a link to the full article are shown. Other than just text, you can also insert multimedia files in RSS feeds like pictures, videos, mp3s and others. Broadcatching, picturecasting, photocasting, and podcasting are some features you can incorporate into your feed, but will not be discussed in this article. For users to access a RSS feed, they need to use an aggregator or a feed reader. An aggregator searches for updates on RSS-enabled webpages then displays it. It can either be a standalone program or a web browser extension, depending on your operating system. Search engines for web content broadcasted over RSS feed are also available such as Plazoo and Feedster.

3 How can I make an RSS feed?

If you don’t have accurate details regarding RSS, then you might make a bad choice on the subject. Don’t let that happen: keep reading. You can see that there’s practical value in learning more about RSS. Can you think of ways to apply what’s been covered so far? It is definitely easier to make an RSS feed if you know HTML. If not, you could sign up for a blog (there are hundreds out there), some of which automatically creates RSS. If you’re using a personal webpage building system, you need to understand more about RSS. Making an RSS feed from scratch is relatively easy. A RSS feed should always contain an “item”, whichever version of RSS you might use. If you wrote about a recent event in your city or a book review, the contents of this article can form an item. An item is essentially composed of three things: a title, its description, and link (where they can find your webpage). In choosing a title and description, use something that will describe the web content best.

 

Thu 27 Apr 2006

Advantages Of RSS

Posted by Peter under RSS Information
1 Comment 

So what is RSS really all about? The following report includes some fascinating information about RSS–info you can use, not just the old stuff they used to tell you.

RSS - or what is now known as “Really Simple Syndication” - is a file format that is incorporated by Internet users in their websites to allow for ‘web syndication’, making their web content available in a format that can be universally understood by other people.

In essence, RSS is a ‘mini database’ that contains headlines and descriptions (a summary or a line or two of the full article) of your web content, including hyperlinks that enable users to link back to the full article of their choice.

RSS websites - that is, websites that contain RSS ‘feeds’ (articles or postings) - typically have colorful graphics to indicate to users that the specific web content is available through RSS feeds. These graphics are usually depicted by orange rectangles that are usually marked with ‘RSS’ or ‘XML’.

With its increased popularity, RSS is now being adopted and used by more website owners or publishers. Today, numerous resources are now available that aid Internet surfers (and even beginners as well) on how to set up and use RSS.

Setting up RSS feeds and adding them to your website can be a simple process that does not involve a lot of time or any money. Listed below are some simple and basic steps that you might want to follow:

1. Have your web content and/or news in an RSS feed format, such as XML (appropriate and ‘ready-made’ feeds are also available from other sources).

2. Click the orange graphic - this is the RSS feed icon. Take note of the URL of the RSS feed; this will be displayed in the address bar (for Internet Explorer).

3. Input the feed URL on your RSS feed creation program.

4. Click on the “Generate Feed” button. This will generate the RSS code for your web content.

5. Enter the RSS code in the appropriate place on your own website.

Having created an RSS feed for your website, next comes the task of publishing your web content and news and having them displayed on other sites and headline viewers. This is made possible with the use of RSS readers or aggregators.

RSS readers or news aggregators are used to view particular web contents. RSS readers contain the collection of ‘feeds’ or RSS files from content providers, and they are generally classified into 3 types:

· Desktop RSS readers - also known as standalone desktop application, they generally ‘run’ in the background and are similar to an e-mail client, collecting the feeds and refreshing items automatically as they are updated.

Now that we’ve covered those aspects of RSS, let’s turn to some of the other factors that need to be considered.

If you base what you do on inaccurate information, you might be unpleasantly surprised by the consequences. Make sure you get the whole RSS story from informed sources.

· Web-based aggregators - these are online services that enable users to personalize web pages, refreshing them each time the page is accessed or each time a person logs in to the service.

· Plug-in aggregators/readers - these make use of either web browsers or e-mail clients, which allow users to view RSS feeds while inside an existing program.

Having an RSS-enabled website provides Internet users (especially those who are website owners) with the following benefits:

· Allows users to generate up-to-date news and postings, as information and content in the RSS readers or aggregators are automatically updated each time the RSS feed is ‘refreshed’.

· Allows users to have control over the information that they wish to view or receive, as they can remove a feed of their choosing any time they want to.

Aside from these benefits, RSS websites are also useful for people who conduct their business in the Internet, particularly in Internet or Online Marketing. RSS can be an effective marketing tool for your website, especially in the following fields:

· E-mail marketing and publishing · Search engine marketing and optimization · Business blogging · Internet advertising · Digital public relations · Branding and e-commerce.

 

Thu 27 Apr 2006

All About Podcasting

Posted by Alex under RSS Information
1 Comment 

Podcasting” is a term that is probably unfamiliar to most people, but it represents a real potential change in the radio landscape. A small group of enthusiasts has begun  cobbling together a way to easily share homemade radio shows, eventually allowing people to reach large numbers of listeners by completely by passing the current  structure of radio. It allows individuals to receive the information that they want, when they want it. Podscasts allow you to receive both audio and video over the internet.