RSS feed is in a non-HTML format called XML. RSS readers or aggregators can interpret and display that coding, but Web browsers can’t. Soon, RSS/XML readers will be part of every browser and e-mail software. But for now, you need a separate reader. You use an RSS reader to bring new, constantly updated material to you, from all your favorite sites. There is no need to check whether a site has updated.

RSS feeds bring automatically updated information straight to your desktop.
You can monitor news, job listings, personals, and classifieds. Thousands of sites now offer feeds, which you can identify by a small orange button that says either RSS or XML. However, if you click one of these links, you will most likely get a page full of code in your browser. To properly read the feed, you need an RSS reader.

Content published in an RSS feed is typically set up to send out notifications whenever new material is available. This makes the new content immediately available to feed readers and RSS search engines. Contrast this with ordinary web pages, which are essentially passive and generally aren’t accessible to most of us until search engine crawlers find and index them. Once indexed, these pages stand relatively little chance of being read by web searchers on a frequent basis.

Instead of opening your Web browser when you sit down at the computer, you open your news feed reader.

Usually a 2 or 3 paned window that allows you to see at a glance which sites have added content, and to scan clickable headlines and summaries of that content. Imagine looking at update info on 10-20 sites at a single glance, and never waiting for a single page to load!

Some important soloutions for making site RSS user friendly :

1. Don’t just place the orange RSS button on your site. Always include a link ‘What is This?’ beside it. Have this link leading to a page explaining what RSS is and how your visitors can access and use it. This has a two-fold benefit; visitors who are familiar with RSS will know how to use the button, visitors who are in the dark can get a quick education in RSS 101!

2. As mentioned before some browsers can Automatically discover or Access your RSS feed. The Firefox Browser is a prime example. To facilitate or aid in this AutoDiscovery process place a simple code in the HEAD section of your webpage’s HTML code:
(link rel=”alternate” type=”application/rss+xml” title=”RSS” xhref=”http://www.bizwaremagic.com/blog/atom.xml” mce_href=”http://www.bizwaremagic.com/blog/atom.xml” /)

3. Of course, many webmasters use many RSS buttons on their site to guide their visitors in the right direction. For example, placing a ‘MyYahoo’ button will make it easier for visitors using that program to access your RSS feeds. Bloglines and MyMSN buttons are other examples. Some webmasters even design their OWN RSS button for their sites. Just remember to place your ‘What is This?’ link beside it.

4. However, if your visitor is not using an aggregator or RSS equipped browser, they will still get the jumbled code that will be puzzling to them. One way around this problem is to use a free service from Feedburner.com and have your RSS Feed transformed or presented so that if can be read in your visitor’s browser. Instead of linking your orange button directly to your RSS feed, use the Free link from Feedburner in its place. Your web site visitors will then be able to read your feeds but they will also still be able to subscribe to your RSS feed.

RSS is the wave of the future. It will play an ever increasing role in how information is exchanged on the web. Make sure your site is RSS User-Friendly so that you can take full advantage this new technology. Make sure your site is a pleasant RSS experience for all your visitors, it will not only put your site in a more favorable light, but it will also make your site more competitive in a very competitive world.

1. RSS is dynamic. When a publisher changes content, consumers know it instantly.

2. Review a large number of sites in a very short time i.e you can review 20 headlines then choose which one to read.

3. Distributes content to consumers who might be too afraid to subscribe to your ezine, they can remain anonymous and don’t need to subscribe or unsubscribe.

4. Bypass spam filters, firewalls, and avoid getting viruses. Consumers opt-in to receive RSS feeds.

5. Can replace or be an additional channel to distribute content besides using email to send your newsletter or ezine.

6. Allows consumers to see some of the producer’s content without needing to visit the site.

7. Provides fresh content for your web site - by adding RSS to your web site you can automatically publish other people’s content.

8. Increase search engine rankings - Search engines love web sites that provide fresh content on a continuous basis. Adding an article feed will provide your site that fresh and updated content on a continous basis.
9. Save time - instead of browsing multiple sites to find information of interest, syndicated content can be delivered directly through your RSS Reader. You scan the headline that interests you, then click to go directly to the source.

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
As the internet has evolved, many webmasters have found that what was once free traffic must now be paid for in order to sustain decent visitor statistics. RSS is in a unique position to bring free traffic because they are content-driven, and if they include interesting or valuable information, will pique the curiosity of web-surfers and entice them to visit a particular site.

6.) Less Effort
Newsletters and E-zines undeniably 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 those 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.
RSS has potential to help companies develop strong relationships with consumers and creating brand loyalty with customers.

RSS Feeds
RSS also known as rich site summary or real simply syndication, arrived on the scene a number of years ago, now embraced by webmasters as a means to effectively syndicate content. RSS Feeds provide webmasters and content providers an avenue to provide concise summaries to prospective readers. Thousands of commercial web sites and blogs now publish content summaries in an RSS feed. Each item in the feed typically contains a headline; article summary and link back to the online article.

Benefits to the Webmaster
As the web has become more crowded webmasters have been striving to provide fresh and up to date content for their website visitors. Many webmasters have discovered they can easily utilize the information in RSS feeds to provide fresh web content.

RSS feeds are composed in XML, which is a very simple markup language. Similar to HTML, XML uses tags to identify fields. Webmasters can easily parse the RSS feed and dynamically create web pages that contain headlines and summaries. The feeds will continuously update, supplying a steady stream of automatically generated fresh content.

RSS allows webmasters to:
1.) Provide fresh and relevant content on their website, which encourages users to return.

2.) Constantly changing content means that search engine spiders will visit more frequently.

3.) Automate content delivery.

The benefits of RSS feeds are not limited to webmasters, surfers too benefit from the technology as well.

Benefits to Web Surfers
The beauty of RSS is that readers can quickly scan headlines (titles) and read articles of interest. Because the information is condensed and provided in a single location users can generally review more information in a shorter time frame. Additional information is only a click away. Best of all readers choose the feeds they wish to see, there is no spam with RSS. If you are not completely thrilled with the content appearing in a feed simply remove it from the newsreader. The technology is a pull technology rather than push technology, meaning the content is not forced on the consumers, who pull the content they want to see.

RSS allows for users to:
1.) Easily locate information.

2.) Read condensed information or ’soundbytes’ with clearly marked and dated topic material.

3.) Classify and categorize information in an easy to navigate manner.

4.) Maximize their time without having to deal with spam.

RSS feeds can be viewed in a news aggregator or reader, which constantly updates and shows unread feeds. I found the functionality of the newsreaders to be similar to a simple email client. Consumers generally enter the URL of any RSS feeds that interest them. Topics with a common theme can be segregated into related groups.
Benefits to Content Developer
While the benefits to users and webmasters are clear the distribution opportunities made available to content developers should not be overlooked. Information contained in the RSS feed can be easily syndicated, increasing content distribution and reach.

RSS allows for content developers to:
1.) Increase exposure in niche markets.

2.) Communicate with user bases and reach potential customers via an alternate communication method.

3.) Disseminate relevant information.

4.) Define themselves as an industry expert.

5.) Automate content delivery.

RSS has effectively standardized the format for content delivery and has effectively defined the accepted standard for content distribution and syndication. RSS will likely rival email as a means of content distribution in another few years. The shear simplicity makes the technology very appealing.

These days everybody wants to have fresh content on their web site. Search engines like to see dynamic web pages, where the content is updated on a regular basis. Static pages that have information that doesn’t change are not only boring, but less likely to be visited by a search engine spider than a page that changes every time it is displayed.

By using RSS and the MagpieRSS toolkit, you can import data from another web site or news source and display that information on your own site.

First, download the MagpieRSS kit from http://magpierss.sourceforge.net.

Next, unpack the archive, into a directory off your root on your web site called “rss”.

Then, create a directory off your root called “cache”. CHMOD this directory to 777.

You’ll need to know the URL for the feed that you want to display. You can find this by searching for “RSS feed” in Google, or by going to one of the many sites that allow you to search thrown various sources for feeds. Syndic8.com is one, for example.

To display data from a single source, you can use code similar to this:

require_once(’rss/rss_fetch.inc’);
$news_feed = ”;
error_reporting(E_ERROR);
$rss = fetch_rss(”http://www.url-of-the-rss-feed.com”); $items = array_slice($rss->items, 0); foreach ($items as $item ) {
$news_feed .= ” . $item['title'] . ” . $item['summary'] . ”; }
echo $news_feed;

MagpieRSS not only decodes the data, but it will also cache the data so it will retrieve news articles only once per hour.

Utilizing RSS in this fashion will allow your web site to have fresh content displayed constantly, and will (hopefully!) keep the search engine spiders interested in your site. The more the spiders index your site, the more pages you will have listed in the search engines. And with more pages listed in the search engine indexes you have a much better chance of attracting people to your web site.

Copyright © 2005 by Mikel Beck. mikel.beck@elite-computing.net

Mikel Beck is the owner of a number of web sites, the latest being The Happy Hour Pub.