What is RSS

RSS will let you get SID-W's events in a news aggregator either on your desktop or via a web service. Read more below about what RSS is, what it can do, and how you can use it.


If you are saying, what the heck is RSS, read on:

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a language a website can use to produce summaries of its recently updated content in a form which personal news readers and other websites can republish.


RSS feeds allow users to read headlines from many different websites at once. Instead of repeatedly checking your favorite sites, you can check your news aggregator service in a web browser or through an email client. From your web-based or desktop news aggregator you will see latest headlines and teasers from feeds to which you subscribe. These headlines are linked to corresponding content on the original website that produced it.

Think of it this way – instead of going to websites to see what is new, subscribe to their feeds and receive the updates like you receive email, either to a web-based aggregator (like http://my.yahoo.com/ or  www.bloglines.com) or a desktop aggregator (like http://www.newsgator.com/Home.aspx).

Who has RSS?

Many news websites such as Yahoo News and the BBC, and blogs or community sites offer content in syndicated format. Users browsing sites with RSS will usually see a small orange box somewhere on the website with the letters XML or RSS which indicates a feed is available.

Here are some suggested news aggregators for users, both web-based and desktop based:

Web-based Aggregators:

Bloglines
My Yahoo!

Desktop Aggregators:

FeedDemon (for Windows)
NetNewsWire (for Macs)
AmphetaDesk (Windows, Mac and Linux).
Mozilla offers news aggregators in several of their open source products, including Firefox with LiveBookmarks and Thunderbird, which is also a great email client alternative to Microsoft's Outlook.

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