RSS Explained
No more wading through gaggles of spam email to find your favourite newsletter or new information (new business listings for example)! View what you want on a website without wading through pages that you don't want or waiting forever for unrelated ads and graphics to download.
What is RSS?
RSS is an easy way for you to keep updated automatically on websites you like. Instead of you having to go to websites to see if they've written a new article or feature, you can use RSS (which stands for Really Simple Syndication) to get them to tell you every time they have something new. Many websites now offer RSS feeds (or channels), the most compelling use of RSS is that it lets users read dozens of websites, all on the same page. The sites can be scanned in seconds rather than having to be laboriously loaded individually.
James Crabtree, of The Work Foundation, says, "There's growing belief in the technology community that e-mail is a system close to breakdown, thanks in part to spam, unread newsletters, and sheer weight of messages. E-mail and SPAM is becoming a very big problem, and RSS is perhaps one of the ways out of it, It's just a really handy way of getting the information you want without having to surf around for it" he says.
How can I make use of RSS?
In general you need to get hold of a program called a News Reader. This displays RSS information feeds from your chosen websites on your computer. All you then have to do is choose which RSS feeds you want, for instance, the RSS feed of the latest businesses listed on The Biz X-Change™.
How do I get a News Reader?
There are a range of different News Readers available; Click here to find links to the most popular products on Google, many of which are free to install. Different News Readers work on different operating systems, so you will need to take this into account when you make your choice. A good reader available as freeware is obtainable from http://www.rssreader.com, it only runs on windows, and you will you will have had to have carried out some of the recent windows updates and patches.
How can I sign up to RSS feeds?
Click on the link that says 'RSS Feed' or a button marked 'XML' or 'RSS' it does vary slightly from site to site. The page that opens up will be the raw XML data which is confusing to read, however your News Reader will interpret it correctly. You then need to follow the instructions for your particular News Reader in order to add this XML feed to your RSS list. You could also right click on the button and click "copy shortcut" and again follow the instructions in your News Reader.
