RSS? What's That?

For those who dare to venture into uncharted waters, use this URL (via copy/paste)— http://sapper.blogspot.com/atom.xml — to create a feed in an RSS (News)Reader. Do not paste the URL in a browser address window. The result will be gibberish; even more than normally appears in this blog. If this is (fair & balanced) cyberphilia, so be it.

[x PC Magazine]
RSS: The Web at Your Fingertips
By Larry Magid

Imagine talking the editors of the New York Times, PC Magazine, Newsweek, and thousands of other publications into creating editions tailored just for you. And while you're at it, see if you can get their printing plants to combine them into one publication, and their circulation departments to deliver the issues to you the moment the news breaks. This will never happen, of course, with print editions, but it is in effect what you get if you "subscribe" to their online content via RSS.


RSS, depending on whom you ask, stands for "really simple syndication" or "rich site summary." Either way, it's a Web-based technology that lets online publishers deliver content to readers without the subscribers even having to visit their Web sites. Publishers must like the idea, because virtually every major online publication now uses RSS to get its material into the hands of as many people as possible. (You can find PC Magazine's RSS feeds at go.pcmag.com/rss.) And it's not just for major publications. Most blogging services support RSS (or a similar technology called Atom), which means that you can easily stay up to date on tens of thousands of blogs without visiting their sites in the conventional manner. Podcasts—those audio programs delivered over the Internet—can also be encoded with RSS to make them easier to find. (See "DIY: Create Your Own Podcasts.") Although the vast majority of Web users have not yet used RSS—at least not knowingly—it's one of those technologies that could revolutionize the way people get their information.

RSS was originally developed in 1997 by Dave Winer when he ran UserLand Software. It was later modified by Netscape Communications, and there have been several iterations. Winer likens RSS to a sushi bar where the sushi comes around in boats. Instead of having to order from a menu and wait for the waiter to bring you your meal, you just sit there and watch the little sushi-laden boats go by. When you see something you like, you grab it and eat it. The same is true with RSS content. Once you subscribe to a "feed," all you have to do is consume the information that is fed to you.

The success of RSS, like many technology advances, has been a bit of a chicken-and-egg proposition. Before it could become reality, there had to be tools both to create and to access RSS feeds, and then enough Web publishers and consumers interested in it to make it worthwhile.

To add RSS to a Web page, a publisher has to upload a file that contains information such as the name of the article, a brief description, and the time and date it was posted. That information is written in XML (extensible markup language), which is somewhat similar to the HTML that is used to create Web pages. Editors and other tools that make it easy to write XML pages without having to know anything about the language itself are available. Software Garden's free open-source ListGarden, for example, automatically generates XML codes and loads them to a Web server with its built-in FTP software. FeedForAll ($39.95, www.feedforall.com) is another very easy-to-use option.

RSS is all about making it easier to find and read (or listen to) the information that you are seeking. RSS content is delivered to users either through standalone RSS reader software, through plug-ins that work with browsers or e-mail software, or through Web sites that, like the software, serve as aggregators, bringing together all of your RSS feeds. (The terms "RSS reader" and "RSS aggregator" are interchangeable.) Two browsers—Mozilla Firefox and Opera—now have built-in RSS readers, and Microsoft has pledged RSS support in its next version of Internet Explorer, which is due late this year.

The idea of an aggregator is to bring all your information together in one place. If you typically look at only a couple of news sites or blogs a day, the benefits of RSS won't be all that compelling. But if you try to keep up with multiple news and information sources, it can be an enormous time-saver because, instead of your having to seek out new stories that meet your criteria, your RSS software or Web page finds them for you. It's like having a personal assistant who goes through every publication and blog that could possibly interest you and picks out stories to bring to your attention. RSS is especially handy if you want to keep up with blogs, because there are so many of them and they typically are updated at irregular intervals. Rather than having to go to a blog frequently to see if it's been updated, you can subscribe, sit back, and wait for any new postings to come to you.

Many RSS readers download content automatically, so you can use them to read content off-line on laptops, PDAs, and even the Sony PSP (PlayStation Portable) gaming platform.

Web sites that have an RSS feed typically display an orange XML () logo. Depending upon which RSS reader you have installed, if you click on the logo, you're likely to see the raw XML code, but in the address bar of your browser you'll also see a URL (such as rssnewsapps.ziffdavis.com/pcmagdesktops.xml). That's the location of the XML file, which your reader needs to know in order to access feeds from that site. Some RSS readers force you to copy the URL into the clipboard and paste it in as a new feed; others make life a bit easier by letting you drag the RSS icon into a window or simply click on the icon. If you have to copy the URL over, the easiest way is to right-click on the icon and select Copy Shortcut if you're using Internet Explorer, or Copy Link Location if you're using Firefox.

RSS Readers

SharpReader (www.sharpreader.net) is a free RSS aggregator written by Luke Hutteman. A bit sparser than FeedDemon, it looks like a cross between an e-mail program and a browser. An address bar at the top lets you enter the URL of any Web site. If that site has an RSS icon, you subscribe by dragging it to the subscribed-feeds panel on the left. Otherwise, you can subscribe manually by selecting Open RSS feed from the File menu and typing in the URL of the XML file. What is appealing about this program is its clean, uncluttered interface. But although it has rudimentary browsing capabilities, it does not offer the full browser experience you get from many other RSS readers. Also, it requires downloading the Microsoft .NET Framework, if you don't already have it installed.

NewsGator, one of the pioneers in this field, offers three ways to access news. The company's flagship product is its Microsoft Outlook plug-in (included in plans starting at $19.95 a year), which transforms Outlook into a full-featured RSS reader. Once you've installed the plug-in, it creates one or more folders that store and display RSS feeds in the same user interface as Outlook e-mail. The Outlook approach has its merits, especially for people who find themselves "living" in that application during much of their workday and prefer having their news and mail all in one location.

An increasing number of users prefer to access news via the Web. To that end, NewsGator offers a free online edition. You can use this version by itself, or synchronize it with its Outlook version if you use both. NewsGator has also acquired the popular FeedDemon standalone reader and has integrated synchronization into that as well.

NewsGator Online is an impressively powerful Web-based reader that works with any Web browser. In addition to letting you add an almost unlimited number of feeds, the site gives you a great deal of flexibility in viewing your content. You can, for example, create and display folders that contain multiple feeds, creating a customized "newspaper" about a specific subject from a variety of sources. One advanced free feature is the ability to create a public Web site from any group of your feeds. As an example, I built one called Tech News Headlines, which I host at www.pcanswer.com/technews.htm.

NewsGator's FeedDemon ($29.95, www.feeddemon.com) has a built-in browser (based on Internet Explorer, but tabbed, and with a relatively full array of features) in which to view the news items it finds for you. The program, which refers to feeds as "channels," also creates a "watch" channel that looks for items that contain specific keywords. If you're using the program as a browser and land on a page with an RSS feed, an Auto Discovery icon appears in the status bar, letting you instantly subscribe to that feed.

Pluck (free from www.pluck.com) has a two-pronged strategy. The company has browser add-ins for Internet Explorer and Firefox, as well as a Web-based version. Regardless of which version you're using, you're asked to sign in, and when you do, any changes you make in that version are automatically synchronized with any others you're using. You could, for example, use the IE version at work, the Firefox version at home, and the Web version from an Internet café, and get the same feeds from all of them. The IE version, which is more robust than the Firefox one, includes a search tool that lets you search for stories by keyword within Pluck or across the Web, using search tools from Google, eBay, Amazon, and other companies. For example, you could use the service's "persistent search" to keep track of changes in prices on an eBay auction, or to follow news about people or events, using news search sites.

Your feeds are organized by folder (such as Blogs, Business, Opinion, Sports, and Technology). With the browser-based versions, you can easily subscribe to a feed by dragging the orange RSS button from any RSS-enabled Web page to a Pluck folder. The Web-based version has another way to add new feeds that is almost as effortless.

Internet Explorer will soon have its own RSS reader. Firefox already does, though it is not as full-featured as some of the add-in and standalone readers. When Firefox displays a page that has an RSS feed, a small orange icon appears in the lower right corner. To subscribe to the page, click on the icon and move your cursor up to Subscribe to RSS. Firefox will then open a dialog box for adding a new bookmark. Once you add that bookmark, you can access the RSS feed for that page from the Bookmarks menu. When you place your cursor over that item, content shows up to its right. Any new content on that page will be added to the menu over time. Firefox's built-in RSS reader doesn't let you easily combine or rearrange feeds, as you can with most of the higher-end products. For example, you can't combine content from multiple feeds into a single window, as you can with FeedDemon or Pluck. But one nice feature is that you can turn feeds into Firefox Live Bookmarks, a dynamically generated list of links to the feed source. (To learn how to create Live Bookmarks, go to go.pcmag.com/livebookmarks.)

The most popular RSS reader is actually a Web page operated by one of the Net's most popular sites: Yahoo!. Yahoo! has added RSS to its My Yahoo! feature so that users with free Yahoo! accounts can add feeds to their personal Yahoo! pages. To display feeds, click on the Add Content link in the upper left corner of your My Yahoo! page. In many cases, the easiest way to add a feed is simply to search for it. If, for example, you wanted to add PC Magazine to your My Yahoo! page, you could type PC Magazine in the Find Content box, which would bring up a series of feeds from the magazine's various departments.

Bloglines (www.bloglines.com) is another popular, free, Web-based news aggregator and search engine, which according to the company indexes more than 80 million articles. Its key strengths include its simple, uncluttered interface and its ease of use. Like NewsGator, Bloglines lets you share your subscription with others, so that they too can see the news that you consider interesting.

Drawbacks

Despite the obvious advantages of RSS, it has its downside. The biggest issue with it is that there are no editors and graphic designers to help you determine what is important. If you go to a printed newspaper or magazine, you usually can easily tell the top stories from those of lesser interest. Newspaper editors, for example, can choose different-sized headlines, depending on the importance of a story. They also lay the publication out in a certain order. The same is true with most Web news sites, where you'll see the most important stories on top, often even if they aren't the most recent.

With RSS aggregators, stories are generally displayed in chronological order. It's possible for important news to be shoved off a page by new entries that may be trivial in comparison. Some people argue that this is a good thing, because it gives the reader, not the publisher, greater control over how information is viewed. It can also be argued, though, that readers may miss important information—along with the serendipity of discovery—if they get all their news from syndicated feeds, rather than jumping around from site to site to see what the editors and bloggers consider to be the top stories.

Despite these drawbacks, having the latest articles from your favorite Web sites and blogs at your fingertips is a convenience that few of those who discover it can resist. It's easy to get started with RSS, and once you do, you may never again have to surf through a large number of information sites one by one, on the chance that you'll find the stories you really want to read.

Larry Magid is a veteran technology reporter for a large variety of media outlets — print, online, and broadcast.

Copyright © 2006 Ziff Davis Media Inc.

Get an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Reader at no cost from Google at Google Reader. Another free Reader is available at RSS Reader.