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Home > News, Events & Media > Tools for Reporters > RSS Feeds

RSS Feeds

The basics of RSS feeds.

RSS stands for "Real Simple Syndication". It is an easy way of sharing content to a wide variety of readers without requiring them to constantly visit the web site. An RSS file is written in XML and contains the titles, brief descriptions, and sometimes imagery for various articles, press releases or blog entries.

RSS feeds are read by news readers or news aggregators (software which functions similarly to an email program). The news aggregator will display the list of all the news headlines and summaries from the feed, and constantly update the list as new stories are added. The user can browse the list and if they see a story that interests them, they can click on the link provided to view the full text article.

The advantage is the ability for users to monitor numerous feeds, and easily see all the headlines without having to go and check each site individually.

For users who do not wish to install any software on their computers, many online news aggregators are available, such the ones provided with MyYahoo! or Feedster accounts.

News Aggregators

The following is a short list of news aggregators available for download.

• FeedDemon
• FeedReader (Free)
• NewsMonster
• NewsGator (Integrates Into Microsoft Outlook)