What is RSS Feed and how you can use it ?
January 16, 2008 by Shanker Bakshi
Filed under Blogging Resource
While surfing you have notice every other blogger requesting you to subscribe his RSS blog feed, if you are new to internet blogging and wonder but this is all about then am sure this post will help you really understand what is this RSS syndication and XML stuff. I will try to explain you about the basic idea of RSS feed syndication. Though RSS syndication is meant for subscriptions to any website, audio, video or any other digital media feed, but to make the subject less confusing am explaining RSS feed in context of Internet blogging. Here we go.
Easiest way to keep yourself update of your favorite blogs
They say, for successful blogging you must spend ample time reading others blogs. How do you go about it, do you really open websites one by one of your preferred blogs. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed gives you One Stop Button to generate updates of all the blogs you wish to read at one place without visiting each site individually. You can execute it in two very easy ways;
1. With Feed Reading Software
2. With Web Based Feed Readers
Now let me explain one by one
1. With Feed Reading Software
This is one simple and efficient way if you are interested to read what is new on all your specific blogs, you may install feed reading software on your computer. There are many feed reading software available on Internet to choose from. I use RSS Bandit, One its free second its very handy to use.
2. With Web Browser Based Feed Readers
These types of Web Browser based Feed readers gives you ability to read the feed; no matter whether you are on your desktop computer on which you have install RSS readers or not. You just need to login to your Readers and it will update the new blog feed instantly. I use Google Readers for this purpose.
What you have to do to get the feed of a specific blog.
To Subscribe RSS feed of a specific blog you have to locate that ORANGE RSS Button. It contains the RSS Feed address like for example if you wish to subscribe the RSS feed of my blog then I have my RSS ORANGE Button Installed at the right corner of my blog. If you click, it will generate the RSS feed address. In my case it is http://feeds.feedburner.com/ShankerBakshiDotCom. . All you have to do is to copy this feed address and paste it on your RSS Feed Reader and save it, if you like give it it a name like SBDC. With the help of XML script it will generate feed update of all my post instantly. Any time you will log on to your RSS feed reader you can see new contents updates automatically.
Feed through e-mail subscription
In generating and providing RSS feed Goggle’s boy FeedBurner is the leader who also provide you various other useful services like subscriber stats, visitor stats, smartcast feedflare etc. One very constructive service is providing feed through e-mail subscriptions. I think you must be familiar with this flair very much. This is also a very handy and efficient way to get the updated content of a specific blog.
Example : RSS Bandit ; Feed Reading Software, This is how i read your blog
Example: Google Reader ; Web based RSS Feed Reader
subscribe to Shanker Bakshi dot Com
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Nice plugins, but I ain’t gonna use them anytime soon, unless I change my mind.
First, I don’t actively promote folks to subscribe to my RSS, as I use the “more” tag and all the full feeds are sliced off. They can only see the “Overview” section in their RSS Feeds anyway so why bother?
I know that there is a plugin to counter this issue, but then again, I prefer folks to physically visit my site for new updates. I update daily, plus my site’s URL is short and easy to remember.
Second, I totally despise automated emails. I prefer to “reward” a first time commentator by checking out his or her’s blog, and sincerely comment on topics that managed to catch my interest.
Still, good plugins you introduced here. Probably useful for those who needs it, but definitely not me, not this time, at least.
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I have a plugin similar to this installed, but I seldom use it cos i always doubt if the commenter wants an email respond to his/her comment. But i put a message “comment-email-responder for first time commenters only”, so that the commenters would not expect more email responses the next time they comment. Some people might want the email reply to their comments but some don’t. It’s hard to know which way.
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I wouldn’t automatically respond to any commenter. I will always respond through a comment. I would like my readers to willingly subscribe to my RSS feed if they choose so after getting to know me a little and my blogging style.
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