RSS - a better way to gather news from the web!

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If you haven't heard of RSS, newsfeeds, news aggregators or weblogs ("blogs"), you probably will soon. RSS is a simple technology which allows short, frequently updated news items to be disseminated from websites. A "feed reader" or "news aggregator" - usually a program running on your computer - checks these sites periodically for updates and displays a brief descriptions of each new item together with a link which you can click to see the full story.

There are two parts to RSS - the feeds (specially formatted text files on websites, containing the news items) and the reader or aggregator (a program running on your computer - or sometimes a special website - which checks the feeds regularly for updates and notifies you when they appear). To see what an actual RSS file looks like, click on the link to PRA's RSS feed. But normally you don't look inside an RSS file - you just copy its web address (URL), then put that into your "feed reader".

What does RSS stand for?

You may see claims that RSS "stands for" Rich Site Summary, RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication - none of which helps to explain what RSS actually is. To add to the confusion, there are also two competing current standards for RSS files (versions 1.0 and 2.0, with older - and simpler - versions 0.91 and 0.92 still widely used!).

Isn't RSS only for "techies"?

Not any more - at the time of writing (Nov 2003) RSS is becoming mainstream and awareness is spreading rapidly among non-technical web users. Most news organisations and newspapers either already provide feeds or are planning to - see for example, a weblog entry from June 2003 describing the introduction of 68 new BBC news feeds. As well as general news, there are feeds on science, technology, industry and marketing. If your business is information, you can't afford to ignore RSS.

How do I start using RSS?

You need something called a "feed reader", "news aggregator" or "RSS client". This could be a program which you download and install on your computer, or a website like NewsIsFree. Some "free" programs you could use are listed below (note that if you access the Internet use a "proxy server", you may need to enter the proxy in some programs before they will work). From personal experience, FeedDemon seems particularly easy to use (the pre-release version is freely downloadable) and is perhaps a good one to start with.

How do I add an RSS feed to my aggregator/reader?

Once your feed reader program is running, find an RSS feed you are interested in (like the PRA feed /rss.xml for example), right-click on the link to the RSS feed and choose "Copy Shortcut" (or whatever equivalent method works on your computer). Then choose "Add Channel" or something similar in your feed reader, simply paste in the address you've copied and click OK. Why not start by adding the PRA feed and perhaps some feeds from the BBC - for example, UK News, Science & Nature (World Edition), or Technology (UK Edition)? Simply copy the link (for example, right-click on the link and choose "Copy Shortcut"), then find the menu option for adding a channel (for example "New/Add Channel") on your news aggregator, paste in the link and click OK. The reader will do the rest.

How do I find RSS feeds?

Look out for icons like or on the home pages of websites, which are links to their news feeds. You can try typing in "RSS" plus your other search terms into Google, or use one of the specialist search engines and directories such as:

To get a list of BBC feeds, try Googling for [ "rss091.xml" site:bbc.co.uk ].

What is a weblog (or "blog" for short)?

In origin a weblog or "blog" is a sort of public online diary used by an individual to give their opinions on any topic which interests them. Usually there is a facility for readers to post comments on the items. More recently, the software has been used by company to publish their own news. Like an RSS feed, each item consists in essence of a title, link and description. An important feature of a weblog is that each item is archived to a permanent location, so can be referenced by a "permalink". This is very important because it allows one person's weblog to reference items in another's, without fear that the links could become broken. A weblog is usually also published as an RSS feed, so people using news aggregators can subscribe to it.

Downloadable "News Aggregators" or "Feed Readers" (RSS Clients)

Disclaimer: PRA cannot offer support for any of these products, and you install and use them at your own risk! Several programs are freely downloadable, but please check the system requirements and read the licence or conditions for use for each program before installing. Software described as a "pre-release" or "beta release" is not fully debugged and has been made available for testing.

New programs for reading newsfeeds are appearing all the time. If you are new to RSS, a good place to start might be FeedDemon (the pre-release version is free to download).

More Background Reading

Introductions to RSS

If you want to read more about RSS feeds and weblogs, have a look at are some attempted explanations from other websites:

Discussions of Weblogs

Mike Taylor.
Last updated 2003.11.27