copyright 2004 Steve Shaw
No doubt you have seen those small orange 'XML' or 'RSS' buttons beginning to spread across some of your favourite web sites.
Perhaps you have clicked on one out of curiosity, only to be faced with a barrage of angle brackets and undecipherable code, seemingly designed to scare the heck out of anyone less than familiar with the intricacies of this new fangled technology creeping across the web.
But once you click on that button - what do you do then? This article will show you exactly what to do. RSS? It's actually Really Simple, Stupid.
The first thing to do of course is click that button. It may be an orange button with 'XML' or 'RSS' written across it; or you could see the word 'Atom'; or, less commonly, it could be blue with maybe the initials 'RDF'; or it could be a simple link with something like 'Grab My Feed'. Gets confusing, doesn't it? But what the acronyms like XML and RSS actually stand for is less than important - what to do after clicking the button is the important bit.
After clicking the button, you will see all that code - if you have ever viewed the source code to a web page, it looks a little similar.
RSS is just another language of the web, but you can actually completely ignore the code itself, just like you can ignore the source code behind web pages that you visit - you are only interested in the end product that the code is designed to produce for you, the end user.
In the case of RSS, that end product is up to date news on the topics you are interested in.
For example, if you want to keep up to date with the latest information on financial markets, or growing marigolds, or your Aunt Mildred's blog as she travels across the Antarctic, and you see a feed on that particular topic, you can 'subscribe' to it and receive messages via the feed, each time the publisher of the feed updates it.
So how do you 'subscribe' to an RSS feed? The important bit is what is in the browser address (or location) bar after clicking the feed button, i.e. the bit at the top of your browser window that usually starts with 'http://...' and tells you the web address of the page you are visiting.
After clicking the RSS (or XML, etc.) button, you need to copy that address - it's that address that you need to 'plug' into what is generally known as a 'news reader'.
News readers allow you to keep updated with the feeds that you are subscribed to. There are several to choose from - some involve downloading some software, some involve visiting a web site, some are free, and some require a small investment.
Once you have chosen a particular news reader, you simply take that address that you have copied, and, following the instructions provided with the news reader to subscribe to, or add a new feed, simply paste it in - the reader will take care of the rest, and keep you updated with your new feed. Once you have done it once, you will see just how simple it really is.
Here are 15 different news readers you can choose from, in approximate order of recommendation under each category: Browser-Based:
BlogLines (http://www.bloglines.com)
AmphetaDesk (http://www.disobey.com/amphetadesk/)
NewsIsFree (http://www.newsisfree.com/)
Software For Windows:
NewsGator (http://www.newsgator.com/) - integrates into Microsoft Outlook
FeedDemon (http://www.bradsoft.com/feeddemon/)
Awasu (http://www.awasu.com/)
SharpReader (http://www.sharpreader.net/)
FeedReader (http://www.feedreader.com/)
NewsWatcher (http://www.newswatcher.com/)
NewsRanker (http://egofile.com/newsranker/) - claims to learn from your news reading to prioritize the feed items you receive
Novobot (http://www.proggle.com/novobot/) - extracts headlines from feeds, and also web sites that you are interested in
Radio Userland (http://radio.userland.com/) - blogging tool with an integrated news aggregator
Software For Mac:
NetNewsWire (http://ranchero.com/netnewswire/)
Software For Linux:
Straw (http://www.nongnu.org/straw/) for GNOME
RSS2email (http://www.aaronsw.com/2002/rss2email/) - Python script that sends you new messages from your feeds via email
It's useful to spend a few minutes researching some appropriate choices - once you've decided on one that you believe to be suitable, you can start picking up new feeds straight away. It's Really So Simple, you won't look back.
About the Author:
Steve Shaw creates software and systems for effective e-marketing at http://takanomi.com. Sign up to his RSS feed, and receive important information on using RSS effectively for e-marketing - just click the following link to sign up: http://takanomi.prorss.com/r/sp/21
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Thursday, February 26, 2009
How You Can Get A Free Enhanced Listing in Yahoo With Your RSS Feed
copyright 2004 Tinu AbayomiPaul
Last week, I cheated on my long-time lover Google, with my old boyfriend Yahoo. And ever since that day, I have considered becoming a bigamist. (To full understand what that crazy drivel was about read my last article about how to get your RSS feed listed at Yahoo within hours - in 5 simple steps here: http://www.freetrafficdirectory.com/rssyahoo .)
Today, I decided to go ahead and break the law - Yahoo is my new other husband.
What am I talking about, and what does this mean for your site?
When I first discovered that you could get into Yahoo’s RSS Feed directory so quickly, I started making a lot of observations about their site. The first thing I noticed is that they made some subtle changes to their search page. That same day, I noticed that certain sites have more information in their listings than others.
Try this search at Yahoo for example "Get Your RSS Feed Listed Within Hours", quotes and all.
Scroll through the results. Notice for search results number 7 - www.marketingproductreview.com and number 8 www.searchenginejournal.com - the link for a searcher to add your feed from search results is right on the page.
If you're an RSS user, you get the power of this already.
Just in case you're not, lemme spell it out for ya.... Thanks to Yahoo, people won't even have to go to your site to add you to their Yahoo page, if you have the right Meta Tag in your site's header.
And if they don’t use the My Yahoo page to track their feeds? They’ve been kind enough to include a link to your XML link as well.
How do I know this works?
Do another search for need free traffic - without the quotes this time. Scroll down to search result number four - see the one with the feed links? That’s my site. Not only did this work, apparently it only takes a few days from submitting your feed. I added this simple code to my site header on the 6th of July. I noticed another traffic increase to my site on the 8th, and I couldn’t figure it out, which led me to check the listings in Yahoo that had sent me the traffic.
How did I do this? I added a simple Meta Tag called RSS Auto Discovery to my site. It’s very simple to use. Here’s what it looks like:
< !-- RSS Autodiscovery -- >
< link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="http://www.freetrafficdirectory.com/members/backend.ph p" / >
Just replace my RSS feed link with your own, and add the tag to the header of your site.
About the Author:
Tinu? Normally a forthcoming woman, her free traffic mental affliction prevented her from telling you the *most* important thing about the RSS Auto-disovery tag. http://www.freetrafficdirectory.com/yes2yahoo
Last week, I cheated on my long-time lover Google, with my old boyfriend Yahoo. And ever since that day, I have considered becoming a bigamist. (To full understand what that crazy drivel was about read my last article about how to get your RSS feed listed at Yahoo within hours - in 5 simple steps here: http://www.freetrafficdirectory.com/rssyahoo .)
Today, I decided to go ahead and break the law - Yahoo is my new other husband.
What am I talking about, and what does this mean for your site?
When I first discovered that you could get into Yahoo’s RSS Feed directory so quickly, I started making a lot of observations about their site. The first thing I noticed is that they made some subtle changes to their search page. That same day, I noticed that certain sites have more information in their listings than others.
Try this search at Yahoo for example "Get Your RSS Feed Listed Within Hours", quotes and all.
Scroll through the results. Notice for search results number 7 - www.marketingproductreview.com and number 8 www.searchenginejournal.com - the link for a searcher to add your feed from search results is right on the page.
If you're an RSS user, you get the power of this already.
Just in case you're not, lemme spell it out for ya.... Thanks to Yahoo, people won't even have to go to your site to add you to their Yahoo page, if you have the right Meta Tag in your site's header.
And if they don’t use the My Yahoo page to track their feeds? They’ve been kind enough to include a link to your XML link as well.
How do I know this works?
Do another search for need free traffic - without the quotes this time. Scroll down to search result number four - see the one with the feed links? That’s my site. Not only did this work, apparently it only takes a few days from submitting your feed. I added this simple code to my site header on the 6th of July. I noticed another traffic increase to my site on the 8th, and I couldn’t figure it out, which led me to check the listings in Yahoo that had sent me the traffic.
How did I do this? I added a simple Meta Tag called RSS Auto Discovery to my site. It’s very simple to use. Here’s what it looks like:
< !-- RSS Autodiscovery -- >
< link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="http://www.freetrafficdirectory.com/members/backend.ph p" / >
Just replace my RSS feed link with your own, and add the tag to the header of your site.
About the Author:
Tinu? Normally a forthcoming woman, her free traffic mental affliction prevented her from telling you the *most* important thing about the RSS Auto-disovery tag. http://www.freetrafficdirectory.com/yes2yahoo
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Benefit From High Traffic With Blogarama
Blogarama is a free and paid blog and rss feed advertising website. You can get information on how to benefit from the paid adverts on their site-www.blogarama.com
In the meantime, you can enjoy yourself with the free advertising service. With a current blog and rss feed listing of more than 112 thousand sites, you can be sure that you stand a chance to get your blog/rss feed out there so that more readers can have access to your content.
In order to add your blog, just click the 'add yours now!' tool on the home page and follow the simple steps to get your blog listed.
Once you submit your blog or rss feed, it becomes active immediately. You however need to wait for between 1 to 10 days for manual approval by the editors. Usually, a mail will be sent to you to inform you of the status of your blog. Generally, blogs with illegal or adult content stand no chance with blogarama.
Blogarama have a way of listing blogs so that it ranks among the first 100 blogs. The secret is in the number of traffic your blog generates to their site. Hmm. Do you call this a win-win situation?
Try this great traffic tool for you blog. It may be the only opportunity you have been waiting for to be on top of traffic generation.
In the meantime, you can enjoy yourself with the free advertising service. With a current blog and rss feed listing of more than 112 thousand sites, you can be sure that you stand a chance to get your blog/rss feed out there so that more readers can have access to your content.
In order to add your blog, just click the 'add yours now!' tool on the home page and follow the simple steps to get your blog listed.
Once you submit your blog or rss feed, it becomes active immediately. You however need to wait for between 1 to 10 days for manual approval by the editors. Usually, a mail will be sent to you to inform you of the status of your blog. Generally, blogs with illegal or adult content stand no chance with blogarama.
Blogarama have a way of listing blogs so that it ranks among the first 100 blogs. The secret is in the number of traffic your blog generates to their site. Hmm. Do you call this a win-win situation?
Try this great traffic tool for you blog. It may be the only opportunity you have been waiting for to be on top of traffic generation.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
6 RSS Tools You Should Have
Hey. I'm highly exited about this info. Think about seamless access to news and resources from blogs you want at any time the way you want it.
These 6 RSS tools are software that will revolutionized the way you access information you are interested in.
1. FEED FOR ALL
This is an rss software that helps you to create rss and enjoy it.
2. SURFPARK
This rss reader is downloadable free
3. THINKMAC
4. STRAW
This tool is specially made for Linux users. uuh. It is fantastic
5. MOBILEFEEDREADER
This tool is good for mobile feed readers.
6. GENECAST
XML to usenet news conversion. It is very useful.
Enjoy them all if you can.
These 6 RSS tools are software that will revolutionized the way you access information you are interested in.
1. FEED FOR ALL
This is an rss software that helps you to create rss and enjoy it.
2. SURFPARK
This rss reader is downloadable free
3. THINKMAC
4. STRAW
This tool is specially made for Linux users. uuh. It is fantastic
5. MOBILEFEEDREADER
This tool is good for mobile feed readers.
6. GENECAST
XML to usenet news conversion. It is very useful.
Enjoy them all if you can.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
5 Definitions Of RSS
There is a great way to tell your fans that your website have been updated. Once it is updated, they get the content automatically and never have to border you. Your content is serialised and syndicated.
Different definitions have been given to RSS. We want to look at five of such definitions in this post.
Definition 1: RSS is a format for syndicating the content of a website. Its acronym is Really Simple Syndication.
Definition 2: RSS is a format for syndicating news and news site. It is a dialect of XML.
Definition 3: RSS is a light weight XML format designed to syndicate news content and weblog
Definition 4: RSS is an XML format for content distribution
Definition 5: RSS (n) RSS is an acronym for Rich Site Summary, an XML format for distributing news headlines on the Web, also known as syndication. First started by Netscape as part of the My Netscape site, it expanded through Dave Winer and Userland. RSS started off in an RDF format. (source newsmonster)
With these definitions, i am very sure you can say something reasonable about RSS. It is a very useful way of distributing the content of your site. Your readers must have an RSS reader to have access to the content. Google, Yahoo have made readers available as tools in the account of users.
Different definitions have been given to RSS. We want to look at five of such definitions in this post.
Definition 1: RSS is a format for syndicating the content of a website. Its acronym is Really Simple Syndication.
Definition 2: RSS is a format for syndicating news and news site. It is a dialect of XML.
Definition 3: RSS is a light weight XML format designed to syndicate news content and weblog
Definition 4: RSS is an XML format for content distribution
Definition 5: RSS (n) RSS is an acronym for Rich Site Summary, an XML format for distributing news headlines on the Web, also known as syndication. First started by Netscape as part of the My Netscape site, it expanded through Dave Winer and Userland. RSS started off in an RDF format. (source newsmonster)
With these definitions, i am very sure you can say something reasonable about RSS. It is a very useful way of distributing the content of your site. Your readers must have an RSS reader to have access to the content. Google, Yahoo have made readers available as tools in the account of users.
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