RSS News Aggregators

How News Aggregators / RSS Readers Work

1.) Websites summarize content in an RSS feed. (see FeedForAll a feed creation tool for help) 2.) Visitors download an RSS readers (aka news aggregator). There are generally two different types of RSS readers. The first kind of feed reader is a self contained program, the second kind of feed reader use a web browser. Many of the programs are free, but generally those that have a small fee are more robust. 3.) Visitors select the content and summaries they wish to view in a news aggregator or RSS reader. (news aggregator and rss reader are essentially interchangable). 4.) Content is added to the news reader by entering the url or web address of the XML file. Sites that have an RSS feed available typically have an orange rss or xml graphic like this - . Clicking on the graphic will provide the url of the feed. Some RSS readers will auto-detect an xml file on a site indicating that a feed is available. (assistance for those wanting to subscribe to rss feeds) 5.) Each time the feed is updated the content being viewed in the RSS reader indicates that there is new content. This insures that the customer has current information related to the topics they choose. 6.) Professionals estimate that RSS will soon rival email's popularity as a content delivery method.