What is RSS?
(Really Simple Syndication) is a way to read many of your favorite websites in the same place, at anytime. Frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts usually have an RSS button displayed.
RSS is becoming increasing popular. The reason is fairly simple. RSS is a free and easy way to promote a site and its content without the need to advertise or create complicated content sharing partnerships.
* the button looks like this.
Once you click this button, you are ’subscribing to the website’ or subscribing to their ‘feed’ of content, where you will get a summary (or in my case the whole article) of all new posts.
Where do you read your feed?Once you decide to subscribe to a site, the feed (content) goes to your Feed Reader or a News Aggregator. This is a simple software that organizes all of the RSS feeds you have subscribed to from various sites and easily displays them for you to read and use in one place.
Don’t get discouraged, this is simple and can be really fun once you get going! A lot of teens use RSS to keep up on their favorite music, events and news. Once you click on the RSS button, it will ask you where you want the feed to go (little icons). You can choose anyone you want:
There are many free RSS Readers available. Some popular feed readers include Amphetadesk (Windows, Linux, Mac), FeedReader (Windows), and NewsGator (Windows - integrates with Outlook). I use Google Reader because I have gmail. My Yahoo, Bloglines are also popular web-based feed readers.
Why would I want to RSS?RSS provides benefits to both readers (users) and web publishers.
1. It gives you the latest updates. Whether it is about the weather, new music, software upgrade, local news, or a new posting from a rarely-updated site, you can learn about the latest as soon as it comes out.(wonderful advantage - for sites and blogs owners - that gives your site regular visitor)
2. It saves on surfing time. Since an RSS feed provides a summary of the related article, it saves the user's time by helping s/he decide on which items to prioritize when reading or browsing the net.(looks like you given your visitor a free service Through this easy widget)
3. It gives the power of subscription to the user. Users are given a free-hand on which websites to subscribe to in their RSS aggregators which they can change at any time they decide differently.
4. It lessens the clutter in your inbox. Although your email address will be required to enjoy the services of online RSS aggregators, RSS does not use your email address to send the updates.
5. It is spam free. Unlike email subscriptions, RSS does not make use of your email address to send updates thus your privacy is kept safe from spam mails.(direct way to publish your site Through site's content, and content is the king as we all knew)
6. Unsubscribing is hassle-free. Unlike email subscriptions where the user is asked questions on why s/he is unsubscribing and then the user is asked to confirm unsubscribing, all you have to do is to delete the RSS feed from your aggregator.
7. It can be used as an advertising or marketing tool. Users who subscribe to or syndicate product websites receive the latest news on products and services without the website sending spam mail. This is advantageous to both the web user and the website owner since advertising becomes targeted; those who are actually interested in their products are kept posted.(you can take advange of this step by using marketing to prodcts and Affiliate programs)
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