 RSS is an awesome tool for disseminating information:
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It allows publishers to spread information about the articles and news they post on their websites.
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It allows people searching for information on given topics to subscribe to feed readers and to be kept updated on news being posted on their topic of interest.
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It allows website owners to bring onto their pages feeds on relevant subjects from other sites.
For the Wikipedia definition of RSS Click HERE.
Here is the process:
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If you are a publisher, you create RSS feeds (in a text compiler - using a specific format) and post them on your server.
You then publish your RSS file URL to the RSS Feed Server Pages.
You can also create a piece of code that other website owners can copy and paste on their pages that links them to your RSS feed and displays it on their site.
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If you are a reader, you subscribe to the selection of feeds that interest you on any of the RSS Feed Servers.
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If you want to bring feeds onto your site you need to subscribe on the RSS Feed Servers, or if the site whose RSS you wanty to access has a code for a feed display, you copy and paste that where you want it to display on your pages.
Here are just a few of the very many Feed Server Pages that are the lifeblood of this system. As you will see if you click on these, a couple of them are set up for subscribing to RSS feeds for one of our sister sites, Health News NZ - as a publisher you can actually set these links up to take visitors to your site directly to the subscribe page for your own feed:
 Subscribe in Feedburner
 Subscribe in NewsGator Online
 Subscribe in My Yahoo
Here is a sample RSS feed:
[?xml version="1.0" ?]
[rss version="2.0"]
[channel]
[title]HEALTH NEWS NZ[/title]
[link]http://www.healthnews-nz.com[/link]
[description]Vital Information about Health and Wellbeing[/description]
[webMaster]patriciahowitt@xtra.co.nz[/webMaster]
[language]en-us[/language]
[copyright]2005 Patricia Howitt[/copyright]
[item]
[title]Angstrom-Size Minerals for Health[/title]
[link]http://www.healthnews-nz.com/angstrom.html[/link]
[description]Why are Angstrom-sized Minerals the most important discovery ever to come to your attention? What do Angstrom-sized Minerals have to offer that is completely unique? Click above to read the rest of the story.[/description]
[/item]
[/channel]
[/rss]
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To get this to display properly I have replaced < with [ and > with ] - if you want to use this as a template, you will need to replace the changed brackets again.
At WebDev they have a RSS Code Generator that will generate a feed with up to 10 RSS Headlines for you:
You will find one of the best RSS publisher services on the net at Feedburner. They have a very good beginners explanation of what RSS is about HERE. If you decide to go into RSS feeds I strongly recommend that one of the first things you do once you create your feeds is go and create an account with them - it is free - and read up on how you can make the most of your feeds:
I will go into more detail about publishing your RSS feeds shortly.
Patricia Howitt
Webdesign and Graphics
http://www.webfeet.biz
http://wildnewzealand.com
http://www.healthnews-nz.com
http://www.getinspirationalquotes.com
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