Blog #3: What is RSS?

On many blogs and CMS systems, you have the option of publishing a site feed which will create an XML version of your blog for RSS syndication. What is RSS? How is it useful and/or being used? How can you use the RSS feed to track updates to your fellow student's blogs? What's an aggregator?

RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication." Syndication is basically a process that spreads something out to a wide audience. The term is used in the TV and newspaper worlds to describe something that appears, say, across the U.S., like a political cartoonist whose work is published in many different newspapers across the country or a TV show that is "nationally syndicated," which means it airs across the United States, though on different channels in different areas depending on how the cable channels are set up. Some shows may also be said to be airing "in syndication," which means they air on different channels depending on where you live -- which usually happens when something airs on a basic channel like ABC, which may be channel 8 for one person and channel 10 for another, depending on what company a person has their basic cable service through. (If it airs on a "cable channel" like TLC or Lifetime, usually this "syndication" idea doesn't apply because not everyone has those channels, since "basic cable" does not always offer such channels).

The same idea of "syndication" applies to RSS on the web. RSS allows content to be "syndicated" across the web to those who would like to follow said content, which they indicate by "subscribing" to the feed (just as you might "subscribe" to a newspaper containing syndicated content), usually by using a service such as FeedBurner or Google Reader. More on that in a bit.

RSS is useful because it is an easy (hence the "Really Simple" part) way to get content to those who want to read it. It also allows those who like a certain site to continuously follow it and read its new content easily. It is being used primarily with blogs, since people often like to follow blogs they like (especially since nowadays there's a blog for practically everything under the sun) but may not want to keep visiting the site over and over to look for updates. However, any site -- not just blogs -- can set up an RSS feed. There are various ways of doing this; I assume if you use a Content Management System (CMS) such as WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla they provide some admin option that allows for a feed to be created (or if not, most CMSes have active communities that provide plug-ins that will allow you to do things that aren't already included in the CMS install itself). Googling "setting up an rss feed" or something similar produces many results. The book Building Web Sites All-in-One Desk Reference for Dummies also gives a good explanation of it in its "Feeding Them Your Content: RSS" section. I follow two sites, one for a fan translation group that uses Drupal for their site, and the other the official site for Prince William & Kate Middleton's wedding, that are not blogs but still have RSS feeds that can be followed.

I could follow my fellow students' blogs using an RSS aggregator, also known as an RSS reader. There are many such readers; the previously mentioned FeedBurner (now owned by Google) and Google Reader are two examples that most RSS feeds (which may be called "atom feeds" depending on how the feed is set up) will recognize. Most sites will have some sort of RSS icon (represented by an orange square with little "listening" waves on it) that when clicked will allow you to subscribe to the site's feed. Either that or there will be some other clear link to do so. If not, you can try adding "/rss" to the site's URL to see if that brings up the feed (it works on the Royal Wedding site anyway) or you can follow the site's feed using your browser, if it allows you to do that (I think IE and Firefox both do). If you have a Blogger account, there is a system on the Blogger dashboard that allows you to add Blogger blogs to your "reading list," which I believe you can somehow sync to Google Reader as well (it would make sense, since both of them are owned by Google).

Given our mostly mobile-driven world these days, there are also many RSS readers for mobile devices. I use a RSS reader app called Byline, created by the company Phantom Fish, to follow RSS feeds on my iPod. It was recommended to me by several people when I asked for advice on an RSS app for iOS after my previous one failed me. Its only flaw is that you cannot add feeds from within the app, likely because it is tied to Google Reader (you have to go into Google Reader and add the feeds there). Similar apps can probably be found in the Android Market (for Android devices) and the Windows Marketplace (for Pocket PCs and Windows phones).

Anyway, I hope you have learned a little bit about RSS from this post! Till next time!

P.S. A couple useful links:

RSS readers for Android: http://www.talkandroid.com/8805-top-5-android-rss-readers/

Some Windows Phone RSS reader options: http://marketplace.windowsphone.com/search.aspx?keywords=rss%20reader