BLOGGING FOR FREEDOM |
HOW TO DISTRIBUTE YOUR BLOG ENTRIES WITH RSS FEEDS |
Understanding newsreaders and choosing the best feed service for you Syndication might not be a word you were hoping to grapple with on this,.“B”’king.Does really simple syndication sound friendlier? Because that’s what RSS stands for, and honestly, I kid you not, RSS is simple and friendly for both bloggers and readers. Relatively painless as it is to bring into your Internet life, RSS is hugely important. Predictions about the Internet are risky, but I’m not going too far out on a limb to predict that RSS will get much bigger than it is today, quickly. As a blogger, you should have some awareness of RSS; it should not be a completely invisible feature for you. The truth is that some blog services, plat- forms, and programs make RSS so easy that it does become invisible. But knowing the basics opens the door to better use of RSS in your blog (if you use a service that allows variable RSS settings).
Furthermore, active participants in the blogosphere benefit from knowing about the opposite side of RSS: As readers of other blogs and many information sources, they use RSS to gather their favorite content into one window — doing so saves a ton of time.
Most programs that translate feeds to actual readable stuff understand all the variations. For all intents and purposes, a feed is a feed. Many big publishers that provide feeds, such as Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Google, make up a new name to erase the differences and to avoid calling them RSS, Atom, or any other tech buzzword.
RSS feeds make the Internet easier to use, and they save time. They bring more content to your screen and distribute your blogging work beyond the boundaries of your site. Your first leg up in understanding RSS is a return to the word syndication. Syndication means distributing a piece of work (such as writing, photos, a TV show) to multiple places beyond the original outlet for that work. TV shows go into syndication when local network affiliates purchase the right to rerun episodes. Newspaper columns and comic strips are syndicated by agencies to newspapers all over the world. On the Web, any content on a Web site can be syndicated to another site or to a program that understands syndication formats. The mechanism that you, as a blogger, are mostly concerned with is blog entries being syndicated to newsreaders. Newsreaders are Web sites or desktop programs that display the contents of syndication feeds — RSS feeds in most cases, but also other formats such as Atom. Even if you’re not a blogger, RSS represents a huge advance in Internet usability. The value of syndication feeds might seem technical and unimportant. Untrue. To “get it” about RSS, look at the information sites you visit regularly — all of them, including these likely candidates:Online versions of traditional news organizations such as CNN, TV network news, and MSNBC Online-only news establishments like CNET, Topix.net, Slate Magazine, and financial news sites Online editions of big-brand newspapers and magazines such as The New York Times, Business Week, Wired, and Scientific AmericanOnline editions of local newspapers Nearly every Weblog in the world, from those written by Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump to individuals writing primarily for themselves Information tracking sites such as a real-estate listing service or a shopping portal for digital cameras News portals with search engines, such as Google News and Yahoo! News.