« Step-by-Step to get the Land Trust’s RSS news feed from Google Streamfest 2007 - Two big days this September! »
What’s an RSS Feed? And How Can I Use It?
What are RSS feeds and how do I use them?
An RSS feed, such as the one offered on our website, is a spam-free, quick and efficient way to read all our latest news. Basically, when a new article is posted or a change is made to a webpage, RSS keeps track of the changes and delivers a summary to you, along with links to full versions of that content. When you subscribe to a given website’s feed by using a feed reader, you’ll receive a summary of new content from that website.
Important: You must use a feed reader in order to subscribe to website feeds. Otherwise, if you simply click on an RSS feed link, your browser may display a page of unformatted gobbledygook. To get the most out of newsfeeds, you need a powerful reader — also known as a “news aggregator” (for text, mostly.) The content of an RSS feed is sometimes described as being “pulled” to a subscriber as opposed to “pushed” – as with emails to subscribers – because the user can easily unsubscribe from a feed.
| Below is a Sample RSS Feed of North Olympic Land Trust’s Spring Newsletter Announcement |
 |
| Screenshot of an RSS feed as seen with Google Reader. |
All the News That’s Fit to Feed
Once you choose a reader, it will display your feeds and the number of new unread entries within each of those feeds. With certain applications you can also organize your feeds into categories and even clip and save your favorites. To the left is an example of a recent RSS Feed from North Olympic Land Trust.
How do I “subscribe” to a Feed?
There are various ways. You may see a big
orange symbol on some web pages like the one to the right. Or you may see an “RSS” link on other web pages. Both symbols denote that the site has a news feed to which you can subscribe, but first you need to get a feed reader.
There are many news readers to choose from; more than 2,000 different feed reading applications are now available. Some readers require a small purchase price but free readers that work just fine are also available. In addition, there are both online and stand alone applications to track and manage feeds. Online services give you the advantage of being able to access your feed updates anywhere you can find a web browser, and upgrades are added automatically. A quick search for “feed reader” or “feed aggregator” on popular search sites will yield more results than you can imagine. C/net’s download.com has links and downloads to ten excellent, rated news readers, including Google RSS News 1.
Or you can get our Step by Step Directions to get a news feed from Google. We hope you enjoy learning more about North Olympic Land Trust through our RSS Feed!
This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 9th, 2007 at 4:45 pm and is filed under Latest News.