Staff

What is RSS?

RSS is short for Real Simple Syndication can be used to let you know about updates to web content. A feed, also known as an RSS feed, XML feed, syndicated content, or web feed, is usually used for:

• news
• blog websites
• pictures
• audio (usually in MP3 format as a podcast) or
• video

RSS feeds can also be used to deliver audio content which you can listen to on your computer or MP3 player. This is also known as podcasting.

How does RSS work?

When you visit a website or webpage within a site that has RSS, the RSS Feeds button rss button  will appear in your website URL address bar if using the Mozilla Firefox 3.x web browser or may appear orange on the Internet Explorer toolbar to you know that feeds are available for the website you are visiting. After you click on the RSS Feed button and you can select a feed from the list of website feeds available for you to subscribe to.

To display and manage your RSS feeds you need an aggregator. University Web Servies recommends you use one of the following methods:

• Microsoft Outlook 2007 to have RSS feed items appear in the RSS folder similarly to a new e-mail appearing in your e-mail inbox
• a web browser (either Mozilla Firefox 3.x or Internet Explorer 7) to view the RSS feeds for a subscribed service as summary of articles as a typical web page, or
• an external feed reader such as http://www.feedburner.com (now part of Google so you need a Google account to use the service like logging into gmail or YouTube). You can get FeedBurner help from http://www.google.com/support/feedburner/.

Please note: RSS feeds are NOT supported in older web browsers, like Mozilla Firefox 2.x and Internet Explorer 6 (IE6), or Outlook 2003.

How can I use RSS to access webpage updates?

Select one of the methods below to set up your own RSS feeds: