Using
RSS in Your Web Pages
Wikipedia defines RSS as Really Simple Syndication.
RSS is a family of web
feed formats used to publish frequently updated digital
content, such as blogs,
news feeds or podcasts.
Programs known as feed readers or aggregators
can check a list of feeds on behalf of a user and display
any updated articles that they find. It is common to find
web feeds on major websites and many smaller ones. Some websites
let people choose between RSS or Atom formatted web feeds;
others offer only RSS or only Atom.
On Web pages, web feeds (RSS or Atom) are
typically linked with the word "Subscribe", an orange
rectangle,  ,
or with the letters 
or  .
Many news aggregators such as My
Yahoo![1] publish subscription buttons for use on Web
pages to simplify the process of adding news feeds.
What Can I do with RSS?
RSS feeds by themselves don’t do much. If you view one
in most browsers, you’ll see the raw XML, which is roughly
human-readable, but intended for computer programs. There
are a number of applications for RSS feeds; the most popular
ones are:
• displaying headlines on
other websites
• search engines
• aggregating RSS feeds from multiple websites
Displaying Headlines on Other Websites
Quite a few websites use RSS to display headlines from other
websites, as it provides additional content to their readers.
Here is a link to a website displaying RSS feeds from the ADA,
Diabetes News. http://www.shericolberg.com/diabetes-news.asp
To display these headlines I used
the JavaScript
RSS-Box Viewer 0.9b.
RSS converter: http://p3k.org/rss/?setup=true
Special thanks to Michael
Fagan for supplying us this reference.
So now web designers and developers alike
have a new tool for helping to populate their clients websites
with useful and timely information. Uses for RSS, XML specific
content driven data may include:
• RSS, XML Medical feeds
for doctors, nursing, dentists and other medically related
websites
• RSS, XML Engineering feeds for energy, technical,
engineering products and electrical websites
• RSS, XML Financial Feeds for Real Estate, Financial
Planning, Mortgage and Banking web sites.
• RSS, XML News feeds for directory, entertainment,
Blogs, associations, educational and training websites.
It’s always best to have original
HTML text content in your website for search engine purposes,
but RSS, XML feeds compliment your existing content. These
feeds are usually updated every day which gives you fresh,
changing dynamic content on your website.
Related RSS Links, Websites and Articles
All
About RSS || Fagan Finder
An explanation of syndication via RSS and Atom, using it,
news aggregators, ... This page is about using RSS and Atom,
from a non-technical standpoint.
What
Is RSS? RSS Explained - www.WhatIsRSS.com
Why RSS? Benefits and Reasons for using RSS. RSS solves a
problem for people who regularly use the web.
Using
RSS News Feeds - Webreference.com
In this Mother of Perl tutorial, we will write a short Perl
script that retrieves an XML RSS file from the Web or local
file system and converts it to HTML.
Set
Up a Simple Syndication Feed Using RSS
You can set up outbound syndication for your Website and expose
your content to the world in one afternoon using an XML technology
called RSS.
How
to: Read RSS feeds - Internet
There are two main types of RSS reader. Standalone applications
are simply programs that process RSS feeds for you.
RSS
Tutorial for Content Publishers and Webmasters
RSS/RDF/ATOM
to JavaScript Converter
Beta Testing: RSS/RDF/ATOM
Converter v4.0
Now with Improved Atom Support!
Beta Testing: RSS/RDF/ATOM
to JavaScript Scroller 1.0
Contributing Author:
Michael
Fagan of faganfinder.com
About the Author
Rick Vidallon is President of Visionefx, a Web
design company based in Virginia Beach, Va. They provide
services to national companies as well as small to medium
businesses throughout the United States.
Rick can be reached at (757) 619-6456 or rick@visionefx.net. |
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