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Tuesday January 6 2009

What's RSS?

Commonly considered to stand for Really Simple Syndication, RSS is an easy way for desktop users and websites to subscribe to interesting content and have it automatically linked and displayed.

Sites like ours make use of RSS to 'pull in' news and information that we think may be of interest to our customers and visitors.  Our sources - like the BBC - are among thousands of sites providing free access to their content for this purpose.  This is called 'syndication';  these are sites that syndicate their content.  Symbols like this RSS are commonly used to indicate that syndicated content is available.

RSS allows web users to stay informed on topics of interest with minimal effort.  There is plenty of RSS 'reader' or 'aggregator' software which allows you to personalise the feeds to closely follow your interests.  The beauty of RSS is that even regularly changing content can be easily refreshed and presented.

If you'd like to know more, try some of these links.  Dataclass is not responsible for the content of external sites and inclusion here does not constitute an endorsement of any product or service.

Syndic8 : Directory of RSS Feeds

WebReference.com : Introduction to RSS

SharpReader : RSS Aggregator for Windows®

NetNewsWire : RSS Aggregator for Mac®

Straw : Feed aggregator for Linux and open desktops

AmphetaDesk : Cross-platform feed aggregator

To find RSS feeds in an area that interests you - e.g. carp fishing - try a Google search for "RSS feed carp fishing".  The number of feeds grows by hundreds every day.