RSS - What is all the Fuss About?

RSS Stands for Really Simple Syndication. It is used for the specific purpose or conveying information that a website or blog has been updated. It is a standard for publishing regular updates to web-based content. And for the technical, RSS is a Syndication Standard based on a type of XML file that resides on an Internet server. It answers the question "What's New?" for a website or blog.

We can find RSS feeds on almost every website that is updated very frequently. The following logo is almost standard to indicate RSS feed.

Here is a Perl Module to create, read RSS feeds.

For Web masters

You can create RSS feeds for your websites in simple way. You can do it either automatically by a program or manually creating adhering to RSS file format.
More information can be found at the following links:

1. http://www.rss-specifications.com/steps-create-rss.htm
2. http://www.rapidfeeds.com/
3. http://www.feedyes.com

Test your RSS against a validator to make sure it's well-formed XML.

• Feed Validator for RSS and Atom
• RSS Validator (UserLand)
• Experimental Online RSS 1.0 Validator

For the End User

If you are an end user, and wants to read the RSS feed available on the net, you can do it so by using feed reader. Feed readers can be either web based or stand alone applications. The following are the webbased applications to read RSS feeds.

• Bloglines - Specializing in blogs, naturally
• Fyuze - Sign up and see what's new on your favorite sites
• Google Reader
• Gregarius
• My Yahoo - Lets you add RSS feeds to your custom page
• News Is Free - Register and make a customized page of feeds
• Rocket RSS Reader (RocketNews)

The following are the standalone applications that can run on your desktop

• Aggie
• Ampheta Desk - Puts feeds in your browser
• Awasu - My favorite, so far
• Feed Demon
• Feed Reader
• Headline Viewer
• News Gator - Integrates with Microsoft Outlook
• Newzcrawler
• Radio UserLand
• Syndirella
• Wildgrape NewsDesk

Ok lets not get into the geeky world of downloading installing ..blah..blah......blah....So you are a naive user......you can find sites that aggregates the RSS feeds from different sites in different categories..............You can search for desired RSS feeds in the following websites.

• http://www.feedster.com/
• http://www.newsonfeeds.com/faq/aggregators
  
• http://www.rssmicro.com/
• http://www.syndic8.com/
• http://www.search4rss.com/
• http://www.plazoo.com/