An RSS feed, also known as a “news feed”, is a syndicated news feed in an XML format that you can subscribe to. A news feed reader, also known as a “news aggregator”, is software that lets you subscribe to RSS feeds. Organizations will trust their employees enough to let them subscribe to RSS feeds. Once you have an RSS Reader, you can subscribe to which ever feeds you want, and quickly flick through news items that interest you. Once installed, this software will automatically aggregate and display the RSS feeds to which you subscribe. Accessing an RSS feed is just like podcasting, in that you subscribe to a feed.

Update your RSS file, and all the external sites that subscribe to your feed will be automatically updated. But already, a medical reporter could subscribe to an RSS feed and receive updates published to a health database. To subscribe to RSS feeds from USATODAY.com, simply select a content section of interest to you from the list provided on this page. Users select the rss feeds (content) they wish to subscribe. The URL you copied to your clipboard will be the location your RSS reader will require to subscribe to that feed. Use the URL that comes up to subscribe to an RSS feed of jobs in that category. The reader you choose will have instructions for how to subscribe to RSS feeds.

Reader

Using an RSS feed reader allows you to be alerted when new articles on the topics you’re interested in are available. PubMed RSS feeds will include citations retrieved by your PubMed searches since the last time you were connected to your RSS reader. Through the RSS reader, feeds from various sources can be scanned with the ability to access the complete content relating to any interesting feeds. To properly read the feed, you need an RSS reader. Then, you’ll need to follow the instructions for your specific News Reader in order to add the feed to your RSS list. Start RssReader and go to add( ) channel/feed and then paste (click right mouse button) the url and press ok. Add as many feeds to this free RSS reader as you want and use it as free news aggregator. The ranking lists and custom searches are available as RSS feeds that you can import into your news reader.

An RSS reader could use this hint to automatically set the polling interval for the RSS feed. Then, return to your RSS reader and follow the instructions for your particular reader for adding a new feed.

Content:

Using RSS, web content providers can easily create and disseminate feeds of data that include, for example, site links, site titles, and summaries. First of all, explore your content management system – it might already have an option to generate an RSS feed. The list below provides links to some example RSS feeds which utilize different forms of content. Content from RSS feeds can be easily repurposed allowing, for example, cross searching of a number of different feeds at once. The difference between RSS feeds and podcast feeds is that you receive text content instead of audio content. After subscribing to an RSS feed, you will be notified when new content is available without having to visit the web site. Using RSS, Web content providers can easily create and disseminate feeds of data that include, for example, news links, headlines, and summaries. This will also give them a starting point for RSS feeds for their content. All the RSS 1.0 feeds contain full article text as well as comments and related content on other sites. Developers can quickly write RSS feeds and publish content in record time.

Web:

Many aggregators are separate, “stand-alone” programs such as those listed above; other services let you add RSS feeds to a web page. The next few sections describe the state of your RSS feed as a Web document. The problems occur when software developers write bad code to publish and pull RSS feeds from the Web. This publication is transitioning from RSS feed to the more generic nickname webfeed. Blog Navigator integrates with various RSS and Internet search engines which enables you to gather webfeed results based on custom search keywords. or your favorite feed aggregator, or incorporate the RSS data into your own web site or client application. Many aggregators are separate, “stand-alone” programs such as those listed above; other services will let you add RSS feeds to a Web page.

Site:

Another thing RSS lets you do is put Monitor headlines on your site, which update themselves automatically when the RSS feeds update. The XML logo is currently in use across the Internet to indicate to users that RSS feeds are available from the site. related to data about a number of projects, or the SourceForge.net site itself) and project-specific RSS feeds. Or can RSS Feed automatically give me a nudge that something has turned up at a particular site. Formatting the feed for your site One good thing about RSS is that it has no formatting whatsoever.

Software:

It is even possible to download RSS feeds to an iPod using software such as iPod Agent. This is a piece of software that checks RSS feeds and lets you read any new articles that have been added to them. However, the software doesn’t support RSS feeds that require authorization. But the software doesn’t stop there. The software is pre-configured with dozens of feeds, so you can unleash the power of RSS right away.

Author: James W. Clark
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Digital Camera Times

If you’re wondering how to get started with RSS marketing, here’s a basic 7-step plan that should provide some needed guidance. Use these steps as your personal RSS marketing checklist to get your started and help you see whether you’re on the right track.

1. START USING RSS AS AN END-USER

The first step to getting started with RSS marketing/publishing is getting your own RSS aggregator, subscribing to other RSS feeds and just seeing and understanding how it all works.

There’s a variety of RSS aggregators to choose from. Just a small sample:

a) Web-based RSS aggregators (websites): http://my.yahoo.com, http://www.pluck.com, http://www.newsgator.com, http://www.bloglines.com

b) Desktop RSS aggregators (software): http://www.awasu.com, http://www.bradsoft.com/feeddemon/, http://www.stevenwood.org/stories/2003/06/08/voxLite.htm

c) Integrated RSS aggregators (integrate with IE or Microsoft Outlook): http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/ (browser with integrated RSS features), http://www.newsgator.com, http://www.pluck.com, http://www.attensa.com/index.php?ys=1

2. PLAN YOUR RSS FEEDS

Planning your RSS feeds might be the most important thing you do about RSS. You most certainly need an RSS feed for your e-zine, your news section, your articles etc.

But how you will package these, what others you might want to offer and other important issues, are much more complex than we can cover in this space. A precise overview of all of the opportunities is available in the “Unleash the Marketing and Publishing Power of RSS” e-book at http://rss.marketingstudies.net?src=sa13

You might also want to do follow-up (autoresponder) RSS feeds, feeds for your affiliates, feeds for your employees or business partners, feeds for the media, and so on.

3. CREATE A LIST OF RSS MARKETING/PUBLISHING REQUIREMENTS

Then create a list of requirements for the RSS marketing/publishing solution you will be getting to publish your feeds. The list should answer the basic questions, such as:

a) Do you want to integrate RSS publishing with your existing content management system?

b) What RSS metrics you’ll want to watch? For example, are you satisfied with just a rough idea of how many people are reading your RSS feed, or are you interested in more precise subscriber counts, clicks and even individual content item popularity?

c) Do you need feed personalization, such as personalizing your RSS content with the receipient’s name and other details?

d) Do you want to provide your subscribers with the ability to precisely select the content they want to receive in your RSS feed (customization), such as by content topic, keywords, authors and so on?

e) Do you want the RSS feeds to be hosted on your own server?

f) Do you need the ability to target promotional messages or other content to your individual RSS feed subscribers, for example based on their previous clicks and reading habits, or even their subscription data?

g) What’s your budget?

h) Etc.

More information on all the different possibilities provided by RSS is available in the free Business Case for RSS report at http://rssdiary.marketingstudies.net/case/index.html?src=sa13

4. CHOOSE AN RSS PUBLISHING TOOL AND CREATE YOUR FIRST FEED

After you’ve prepared a list of requirements you can start searching for the appropriate tool. These come in a few general categories:

a) Desktop feed generation tools

Desktop software you can use to inexpensively, quickly and easily generate RSS feeds, but doesn’t allow for more advanced features such as content targeting. The market leader in this category is http://www.feedforall.com.

b) Hosted online RSS publishing solutions

If you don’t want to be bothered with a desktop tool and having to constantly upload your RSS feeds to your server, you could try a basic hosted online RSS publishing solution, such as http://www.myrsscreator.com. Using their simple service you don’t even need your own website to publish via RSS. Another good choice, especially if you’re in PR, is http://www.press-feed.com/

c) Advanced RSS marketing solutions

These will cover more advanced RSS marketing capabilities, such as metrics, scheduled autoresponder messages, database building capabilities and similar. The strongest contenders in this market are http://www.simplefeed.com, http://www.nooked.com, http://myst-technology.com and some other strong players as well. Solutions aimed especially at smaller companies include [http://www.rssautopublisher.com] and http://www.market-soft.com/bypass/

d) Other options

There are many other options as well, one for example being using your existing content management system to publish RSS feeds, or using a blog publishing solution such as http://www.movabletype.com

5. PROMOTE YOUR RSS FEEDS THROUGH YOUR OWN CHANNELS

a) Create an RSS presentation page, on which you explain: what RSS is; how the visitor will benefit from using RSS; where they can get a free RSS aggregator (recommend one yourself!); how they can subscribe to your RSS feeds; and why they should subscribe to your own RSS feeds.

Then, on this same page, include the links to all of your RSS feeds. In addition to the standard orange RSS button, also include direct links for subscriptions via MyYahoo! (get it here http://my.yahoo.com/s/button.html) and other relevant services, such as Bloglines (http://www.bloglines.com).

b) Now promote this RSS presentation page as much as you can using all of your available channels.

c) Promote your RSS feeds directly below your e-zine subscription box, and always “above the fold”. Promote your RSS presentation page (telling your visitors that’s where they can subscribe to your feeds) on the most prominent locations of your site.

d) If you’re publishing more than one RSS feed, but rather a couple of focused topic feeds, promote each of them next to their topics on the site.

e) Promote your RSS feeds in all of your e-mail messages and e-zine issues.

f) As for the content, don’t just say “Subscribe to receive news from my site”, but rather prepare compelling copy to specifically show your visitors why they need to subscribe to your content in the first place and why they should subscribe specifically to your RSS feeds.

e) Enable Auto-discovery

Just include the following piece of HTML code in the section of your webpages and you’ll be all set:
link rel=”alternate” type=”application/rss+xml” title=”RSS” href=”ENTER_RSS_URL”

6. PROMOTE YOUR RSS FEEDS THROUGH EXTERNAL CHANNELS

a) Submit your feeds to the appropriate search engines and directories. A good list can be found here: http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/

b) Ping the RSS aggregation sites each time you update your online content, letting them know that new content is available to be indexed. You can use this free service: http://pingomatic.com

7. OTHER KEY RSS ACTIVITIES

a) Measure and optimize your feeds

b) Syndicate your feed content to other web media

c) Display third-party RSS feeds on your site

Copyright 2005 Rok Hrastnik

Author: Rok Hrastnik
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Smart cooker

I am in no way an expert in Blogger or BlogSpot, but I am passing along to your a nice free article on how to write a theme there since I know some of you blog there.

How To Create A Blogger/Blogspot Theme by Brad

This tutorial will cover the steps needed to create your own blogger template. Many people have used blogger to run blogs and have wondered how they can make their own theme to use with it. There are a very few hard to find guides on how to do this, so I’ve decided to take up the task to help as many people as I can, create one. Incase you are skimming over the content, this article is teaching you “How to create a blogger / blogspot theme“

To create a blogger template, you will need a graphic editor (Such as Photoshop, GIMP, or even Paint will do) to create images for backgrounds, post headers, sidebars, etc.. We will get to that later. You will also need an idea or vision about what you want to create. Without that, you are just wasting your time and electricity. Lastly, you will need to know about C.S.S (Cascading.Style.Sheets) and how to operate them. If you do not know how to do that, you cannot apply interesting effects to your newly designed template (Such as: Positioning pictures or text, creating repeated backgrounds, moving around pictures and text and more). A great guide on how to get started with this is available here.

Once you have got everything you need, you should start the C.S.S Framework by putting properties such as

body[ background-color: #000000; margin: 0 auto; font-family: “Trebuchet MS”, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;}

#title [ font-size: 32px; color: #000011; }

so-on and so forth. A basic list of these tags that were taken from Blogger’s simple white theme are available here: (PDF File) XML Tags Blogger List Of CSS. An easier way to do this would be to find a theme that you like and copy and paste the C.S.S, editing it along the way so that time is saved. The only problem with doing that is that every theme is engineered differently so the tags will change.

After configuring your CSS Stylesheet, you must piece it together in HTML. This can be achieved using similar structures.

<div id=’main-wrapper’> <b:section class=’main’ id=’main’ showaddelement=’no’> <b:widget id=‘Blog1′ locked=‘true’ title=’Blog Posts’ type=Blog’/> </b:section> </div>

Do not forget to reference blogger templates that have already been created for the required widgets that you are supposed to put in certain spots. Without doing this, you could not complete making your own template.

Now comes the grueling part that you can either do yourself which could take hours to finish, or copy from another site and edit accordingly. Blogger is configured using widgets. All your posts are just one big widget hence the code up there. An Example of the code that you could type yourself or copy is:

<div class=’post-footer’>
<p class=’post-footer-line post-footer-line-1′><span class=’post-author’>
<b:if cond=’data:top.showAuthor’>
<data:top.authorLabel/> <data:post.author/>
</b:if>
</span> <span class=’post-timestamp’>
<b:if cond=’data:top.showTimestamp’>
<data:top.timestampLabel/>
<b:if cond=’data:post.url’>
<a class=’timestamp-link’ expr:href=’data:post.url’ title=’permanent link’><data:post.timestamp/></a>
</b:if>
</b:if>
</span> <span class=’post-comment-link’>
<b:if cond=’data:blog.pageType != “item”‘>

<b:if cond=’data:post.allowComments’>
<a class=’comment-link’ expr:href=’data:post.addCommentUrl’ expr:onclick=’data:post.addCommentOnclick’><b:if cond=’data:post.numComments == 1′>1 <data:top.commentLabel/><b:else/><data:post.numComments/> <data:top.commentLabelPlural/></b:if></a>
</b:if>
</b:if>
</span> <span class=’post-icons’>
<!– email post links –>
<b:if cond=’data:post.emailPostUrl’>
<span class=’item-action’>
<a expr:href=’data:post.emailPostUrl’ expr:title=’data:top.emailPostMsg’>
<span class=’email-post-icon’> </span>
</a>
</span>
</b:if>

<!– quickedit pencil –>
<b:include data=’post’ name=’postQuickEdit’/>
</span> </p>

<p class=’post-footer-line post-footer-line-2′><span class=’post-labels’>
<b:if cond=’data:post.labels’>
<data:postLabelsLabel/>
<b:loop values=’data:post.labels’ var=’label’>
<a expr:href=’data:label.url’ rel=’tag’><data:label.name/></a><b:if cond=’data:label.isLast != “true”‘>,</b:if>
</b:loop>
</b:if>
</span> </p>

That code translated into human terms controls what goes at the bottom of every post…In this case its the author, time, comment link and labels. To extract the code from other templates, just click the “Expand Widget Templates” button and it is below the stylesheet on a certain template.

Most of creating a template is just trial and error. If you look at the code and try to piece it together bit by bit.. you will eventually succeed and reap the rewards of creating one. I hope this tutorial has covered everything that you will need and comments/suggestions would be greatly appreciated as it would be great if this tutorial would become a one-stop source for all of the Blogger CMS(Content Management System) users.

About the Author

This post was created by Brad. This article is from Brad Blogging.com, which is also where he blogs about tips to make your blog better, through personal experience. If you run a blog, or will be considering about creating one in the future, this blog may be the ultimate resource for you to achieve maximum success!!

BlogBoy Notes:To me everything looked quite sound, but I am not expert on blogger or BlogSpot so make sure you back up your current themes and templates.

]]> http://bradtheblogboy.com/wordpress-2/theme/bloggerblogspot-themes/feed/ 23