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RSS

Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2007 12:42 pm
by alex.barylski
What the hell is it? I mean technically I think I understand it. It's simply some XML document which lists news events or similar, right?

Why would a web site want an RSS feed? Would it be used to list their company news? How does it get displayed on a web site? Does an RSS reader - read the XML file locally and then output appropriate (X)HTML?

What would be the benefits to having an RSS feed on one's web site?

Cheers :)

Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2007 12:52 pm
by superdezign
RSS feeds are just XML documents that represent data on your site. Typically, it refers to the latest news, articles, and such. If you look at any threads here, each has it's own RSS feed that is updated whenever new posts are made.

Every website with content that is updated often should have one. Digg has one. Technorati has one. A List Apart has one. Almost every blog has one. Yahoo News has one. It's just a way for people who know what RSS is to subscribe and know when there's new stuff without actually having to go to your website.

And RSS is not displayed on a website, the website is displayed on the RSS (in simplest terms).

Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2007 12:58 pm
by alex.barylski
superdezign wrote:RSS feeds are just XML documents that represent data on your site. Typically, it refers to the latest news, articles, and such. If you look at any threads here, each has it's own RSS feed that is updated whenever new posts are made.

Every website with content that is updated often should have one. Digg has one. Technorati has one. A List Apart has one. Almost every blog has one. Yahoo News has one. It's just a way for people who know what RSS is to subscribe and know when there's new stuff without actually having to go to your website.
And RSS is not displayed on a website, the website is displayed on the RSS (in simplest terms).
Thats the answer I was looking for. ;)

Thanks...although is it not possible (obviously technically it is) to read and render your XML RSS feed in XHTML for display on your site, instead of having to sources (news stored in DB and in RSS). I realize that RSS is more generic being XML but it seems to me it would make sense, no?

Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2007 1:05 pm
by superdezign
You can read your RSS to your website instead of your database, but that's sooo last decade. :wink:

Your RSS should only include like, the latest ten of something, not all of it. Both your website and your RSS should be based off of your database. And don't diss it before you try it... People who know what RSS is will enhance your website as they'll come back quicker (if their interested in what's in your feed) and keep your site looking active.

Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2007 1:21 pm
by alex.barylski
superdezign wrote:You can read your RSS to your website instead of your database, but that's sooo last decade. :wink:

Your RSS should only include like, the latest ten of something, not all of it. Both your website and your RSS should be based off of your database. And don't diss it before you try it... People who know what RSS is will enhance your website as they'll come back quicker (if their interested in what's in your feed) and keep your site looking active.
I haven't dissed it. I've never even bothered to use it. I use other techniques to keep aware of changes, although admittedly my tool is antiquated having been written about 8 or 9 years ago. :P

RSS sounds certainly more attractive. I will investigate further and thanks for the tips. ;)

Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2007 1:28 pm
by superdezign
Harvard has a really good resource on RSS specifications.

Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2007 3:04 pm
by matthijs
You're not using RSS? (keeping up with feeds I mean) You must have so much free time :) I have like 250-300 feeds in my reader. Too many ... I'm getting really good at speed-scanning headlines

Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2007 3:25 pm
by alex.barylski
matthijs wrote:You're not using RSS? (keeping up with feeds I mean) You must have so much free time :) I have like 250-300 feeds in my reader. Too many ... I'm getting really good at speed-scanning headlines
Nope. Don't need I guess. I have a handful of sites which I frequent daily (here, codeproject, facebook etc) the other bits of my day are spent searching the web or doing development. I don't read blogs I stick to popular sites only and keep a watch for something interesting via general forums :P

Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2007 4:16 pm
by Jenk
RSS is merely a standard XML format, to be utterly pedantic. RSS Feed's are information feeds the utilise the RSS format. Firefox's "Live Bookmarks" is an example of feeds.

Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2007 4:24 pm
by superdezign
Hockey wrote:
matthijs wrote:You're not using RSS? (keeping up with feeds I mean) You must have so much free time :) I have like 250-300 feeds in my reader. Too many ... I'm getting really good at speed-scanning headlines
Nope. Don't need I guess. I have a handful of sites which I frequent daily (here, codeproject, facebook etc) the other bits of my day are spent searching the web or doing development. I don't read blogs I stick to popular sites only and keep a watch for something interesting via general forums :P
I'm the same way. I rarely find any sites that I "just read."

Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2007 5:57 pm
by JellyFish
Hey, I've been looking for a website that feeds some free daily or maybe weekly market data, you guys got any ideas?

Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2007 6:34 pm
by alex.barylski
Jenk wrote:RSS is merely a standard XML format, to be utterly pedantic. RSS Feed's are information feeds the utilise the RSS format. Firefox's "Live Bookmarks" is an example of feeds.
Yea I figured that when I clicked on the rss.php file on this site and seen the source...

I always understood what RSS was, but never really why, know what I mean? I got it technically but conceptually I hadn't bothered to think about why and how it makes a web site better.

I get the idea of a reader now...I can see how if your a news junkie (which I am not) RSS would be a dream come true and is likely why I haven't adopted the practice of subscribing to them.

Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2007 6:46 pm
by Luke
RSS allows for sites like Google to display as many news headlines (and excerpts, and sometimes the whole news story) as I like on my personalized home page. Any site with a news feed can be displayed on my Google home page because it's as simple as parsing an XML file. That's what makes RSS so cool.

EDIT: Hockey, why didn't you just ask wikipedia? That's how I educated myself about it... :?

Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2007 8:12 pm
by alex.barylski
Ninja. Why don't you search the Wiki or Google for any questions you have? I do educate myself on many matters (articles, google, wiki, etc) I've been doing it for over 20 years. Sometimes all you want is a quick fix to a small problem. A summation not a story. I was already familiar with RSS just never really bothered to digest it. I was more interested in "why" a business would have a RSS feed or any web site for that matter.

Not every article will give you the pro and con or the why and hows, so we seek a more direct answer by posting to a community. Is that not the purpose of a community, to learn from others?

What difference does it make whether I seek a quick answer from a community or spend a few minutes reading a dozen articles? If I need a deeper understanding into RSS I'll do some research and reading, right now I can't be bothered.

Cheers :)

Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2007 11:14 pm
by Luke
Ninja. Why don't you search the Wiki or Google for any questions you have?
I do, and if those avenues fail, or I have further questions, or those that need to be answered by a human, I turn to these boards.