An Introduction to Web Feeds (part one) July 28th, 2006
Now that you know more about blogs from Paul’s articles (I & II), it’s time to introduce you to web feeds, which are usually closely coupled with blogs.
Web feeds go by many names including just plain feed?, XML feed, web syndication, syndication, aggregation, RSS, and Atom. In this article I’m going to refer to it as a feed? for the sake of simplicity.
So what is a feed? A feed is a small file published in a special format (XML). It contains a summary of the recent content published on a web site, and allows you to find out about updates to that site without having to browse to it. This is one of the cool advantages of feeds, not only are you updated with new information from your favourite sites, but you’re kept posted with any changes on them too.
Who publishes feeds? Feeds are mainly associated with blogs and news sites, but are growing in popularity for syndicating almost any information on the web. This even includes sharing company information across an organisation! Another development is the use of feeds for publishing newsletters. Imagine publishing your newsletter on your website, whilst it is automatically sent out to all the people who subscribe to your feed, at the same time.
How do I know whether a site has a feed? Most sites conform to displaying an orange button or a link labelled with either XML 
, RSS 
, or Atom 
in the sidebar (although it could be placed anywhere on the site) to show that they have a feed. Another handy way of discovering whether a site has a feed, and if you use Mozilla Firefox as your browser, is to look in the right hand corner of the navigation bar. If you see a button like this 
called a live bookmark, you’ll know that the page has a feed.
Where do I begin? The first thing to do is actually subscribe to, and read, some feeds. Before you can do that you need to find a feed aggregator / feed reader / RSS reader / RSS client. There are two types of feed readers, web-based and installable applications. The pro to using a web-based reader is that you’ll be able to view your feeds from any computer with an internet connection, but you won’t be able to access your feeds offline as you can with a reader installed on your computer.
Here are some feed readers to get you started:
- Feed reader - Windows-based desktop feed aggregator (what Victoire uses)
- NetNewsWire - A newer, standalone desktop aggregator for MacOS X (what Paul uses)
- Headline Viewer - The original desktop aggregator. For most versions of Windows.
- SharpReader - Windows-based desktop aggregator; many features.
- Radio UserLand - Hybrid desktop/Web aggregator and weblogging tool. Windows and Macintosh (7.5.5+ and OSX).
- News is Free - Another Web-based aggregator which also does some third-party scraping.
- Apache JetSpeed - An Enterprise-class Java Portal that supports RSS.
In part two I’ll go into more detail about how to publish your own feed, as well as some nifty ideas and tricks on using feeds.
Resources for further reading:
- SixApart - About Feeds (XML, RSS and Atom)
- RSS Tutorial for Content Publishers and Webmasters
More links to resources can be found at my del.icio.us feeds bookmarks page: http://del.icio.us/victoire_za/feeds
Technorati Tags: feeds, syndication, aggregation, xml feed, rss, rss feed, atom, news, blog, blogging
Posted in Blogging, Feeds, Tutorials | Comments (2)
October 17th, 2006 at 4:09 am
[...] I have been using Feedreader ever since I was introduced to Feeds many many moons ago. I find it just right for my feed needs… just as most people have a preferred email client, I have my Feedreader (although I have to admit that I am looking at the Google Reader, based on Paul’s article, as I type!) Be that as it may, I have found one fault with Feedreader… when I am viewing my feeds at work, from behind a proxy, I cannot see any of the images embedded in the feeds. Of course I just wrote this down to “proxy issues” and forgot about it (I don’t have the time to read each of my feeds in a browser, simply to view the images!)… Ah but wait. I downloaded and installed the latest version of Feedreader, version 3.06, today and viola! I have images. I don’t know how this issue was resolved… but that is the beauty of new media, you don’t need to understand the how’s, all you need to do is appreciate it… Just as I’m appreciating my feeds, especially those chilibean ones, with all their images! [...]
November 6th, 2006 at 6:13 pm
[...] We introduced some of our readers to RSS feeds a little while ago and have been talking about feeds on and off since then. Stephanie Quilao has a great post that really helps to explain feeds "the Oprah way" so if you still feel a little intimidated by all the geek speak that tends to accompany any discussion of feeds, then this is a post for you. Feeds really are important to get to know and can make a huge difference in how you consume all that tasty content out there. [...]