The Definition
There are billions of web pages across the globe, keeping up to date with all the information can be a time consuming and at times difficult process. It would be much better if you could just simply subscribe to a site and be notified when that site has new content available, such as a news story or article about a new piece of innovation. This is where RSS / Site Syndication comes in.
RSS is an acronym for Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Search depending on which side on the fence you sit. You will often see labels on sites marked up as RSS or ATOM or XML, all of these buttons and logos are telling you that the site you are visiting can give you updates on the status of it's content. In a word all these sites have feeds available.
In a nutshell, this means you can identify content you would like and have it delivered directly to you.
Subscribing to RSS feeds takes the hassle out of staying up to date with the latest news on your chosen area, RSS feeds show you the latest content that you are interested in.
RSS is growing, but not all websites currently support it. We have RSS feeds on all of our web portals.
How do I start using news feeds?
To use news feeds you will need a piece of software called a newsreader. The newsreader puts the news into a format that can be easily understood. First of all download a newsreader (there is a list at the bottom of the page), then click on the RSS icon that can be found on many web pages. You'll either have to manually add the feeds to your newsreader or it will happen automatically.
If you click on the button you can subscribe to the feed in various ways, including by dragging the URL of the RSS feed into your news reader or by cutting and pasting the same URL into a new feed in your news reader.
Some browsers, including Firefox / Opera / Safari and IE7, have functionality that automatically picks up RSS feeds for you. For more details on these, please check their websites.
Feed Programs
If you want to access your feeds with a web news reader (you don't want to install software onto your computer) you could look into:
- MyYahoo!
- Google Personalised Homepage
- My MSN
- My AOL
That way you can read your feeds as soon as you load your browser as all of those online readers can be set to your default homepage. Other websites which offer online news reading to check out - Bloglines, Rojo. and NewsGator. All of the web based services are completely free of charge, so sign up and get reading.
Remember that if your using IE7 or Firefox, these programs already have built in feed readers - merely clicking the RSS icon on a site will be enough to subscribe you. If your on an Apple Mac, Safari has the same functionality.
If your after a seperate piece of software to read feeds you could look into NewsGator or FeedDemon for PC or NetNewsWire for the Apple Mac platform.
Using Copybook News RSS feeds on your site
We encourage the use of Copybook News RSS feeds as part of a website, subject to our Terms and Conditions.
However, we do require that the proper format and attribution be used when Copybook News content appears. The attribution text should read "[Portal Name]" or "From [Portal Name] " as appropriate. You may not use any Copybook Solutions logo(s) without our express permission.
*[Portal Name] refers to the portal from which the RSS feed was taken, so if you use the feed from Airport International you would need to mark the news as 'Airport International' or 'From Airport International'.
Copybook Solutions does not accept any liability for our RSS feeds. Please see the Terms and Conditions for full details.