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Canadian Community Newspapers Association

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RSS: Really Simple Syndication

Friday, April 08, 2005

By Peter Josselyn
CCNA COMMUNICATIONS COORDINATOR

At the moment, RSS is lurking just below most people's radar. For the consummate news junkie, there are few better tools for getting up-to-the-minute specialized news. It's a new way to surf the net, and one that could save busy editors plenty of time.

Sites are starting to adopt RSS in droves, so now is the time to start making this technology work for you.

What is it?

The concept goes something like this: imagine that instead of having to go to your favourite web sites to see if there are any new articles, a special computer program could do the work for you. You would just have to scroll through your bookmarks to see what pages have new content, like the screen capture above.

What do I need?

RSS only works on sites that have set up feeds, so don't expect to see it everywhere—yet. To take advantage of this technology, you need either an RSS program (often called a news aggregator or RSS reader) or an RSS-compatible web browser like Mozilla's Firefox. With this software, looking at the news is like navigating your bookmarks menu, but under each bookmark there is a list of constantly updated stories.

Like most technology, there is a some lag time while news organizations catch on. Most of the major news organizations in the United States have adopted the technology (CNN, Wired, Salon, & Slashdot), and many Canadian outlets are following suit. The CBC now offers news RSS for its roster of news web sites. Viewers can load feeds for each province, as well as topical feeds, such as health or national news.

Not just for the news

RSS is great partially because it is so versatile. You can use it as many ways as you use the net. If you read blogs—and there are probably blogs that discuss your local community—why not use RSS to keep up to date? Most blogging software like Blogger, Typekey, or Livejournal all have built in RSS capability.

More people than ever are using blogs as news sources (PEW research showed that blog readership jumped 58 per cent in 2004—6 million Americans use RSS). Many blogs offer different perspectives about current events and can be engaging, if proudly biased. They are not a replacement for traditional news, but can be complementary.

Viewing RSS feeds with Firefox

Firefox is a good starting point for people who want to explore RSS feeds, since it is integrated into web browsing. Best of all, this alternative browser is free and comes in both Mac and Windows versions. Pages that have RSS feeds display orange icons—just click on them and add the page to your RSS bookmarks.

These are called Live Bookmarks and they can be managed the same way that you would manage traditional Internet bookmarks.

Using Bloglines

There are lots of news aggregators out there, but Bloglines is one of the easiest. It's convenient since it is web-based allowing you to access news feeds the same way that you'd access a web-based e-mail account. There's no need to remember web addresses, and it keeps track of what links you have visited.

Adopting RSS

If you want to put RSS feeds on your site, it might be easier than you think. Depending on the content management software that you use, it might already be built in.

One thing is for sure: RSS is a great way of getting more readers to check your site regularly.