OVERVIEW

What's an RSS news feed?

A news feed, sometimes called a "channel" or simply a feed, is an industry-standard method for publishing information online, especially suited for communications involving a series of "articles" or "news items" over time.

Example: A real estate agent publishes a news feed to communicate to clients new property listings as they occur so that they get a time-advantage over other buyers.y subscribing to the news feed, clients can choose to get automatic notification any time a new listing is posted.

Example: A restaurant publishes a news feed to communicate seasonal menu changes or holiday specials, perhaps mixed with nutritional suggestions.

As you can see with the above examples, "news" doesn't have to mean breaking events in the world. News feed messages can be any thing at all, such as product announcements, for-fee consultant newsletters, meeting minutes, stock market reports, musician gigs, school sports reports, vacation rental home specials, teacher homework assignments, and so on. Maybe we should call them "info feeds".

How does a news feed differ from email?

In several ways...

First, one must maintain an email mailing list. Email goes uninvited into their typically spam-cluttered in-boxes. News feeds, on the other hand, are files that are published online and easily available (in several powerful ways) to anyone who chooses to receive that information. Email "pushes" information to others at the convenience of the email sender, like spam, whereas with news feeds, others "pull" information at their convenience.

Second, with email, one uses a series of emails to send messages spread over time, whereas with news feeds, one's latest news item simply gets appended to the news feed. The viewer of the feed has access to all published information, not just the latest. (Of course, the publisher of the feed can elect to delete old items from the feed).

Example: An art gallery publishes a news feed to announce special events (artists' signings, openings, etc.). Subscribers to the feed see the full list of such events, and each time a new announcement is made, the list will have that addition.

What constitutes a news feed?

There are two "parts" to a news feed. The first part (the "channel elements") describes the overall feed (name of feed, title of feed, description of feed, publisher of feed, etc.). The second part (the "item elements") is a series of news items, each news item having a title, a description, and a link (and optionally more information). When you first create a news feed, you specify the channel elements. And when you write a news item, you specify the associated item elements for that item. The structure of a news feed might be compared to a railroad train ... the channel elements is like the train engine, and the series of item elements correspond to the string of railway cars on the train.

How does one actually write and publish a news feed?

There are several ways, depending on one's skills. The simplest is to use an online service like Enfeedia where you simply fill in an online form with your information — title, description (aka article), and link — and Enfeedia does the rest. At the other extreme, one could decide to use an editor to directly write the cryptic XML file format for the news feed — but this method is fraught with peril. In between those choices, one can find software programs that simplify the writing of news feeds but typically require you to have more technical knowledge than ought to be necessary.

With Enfeedia, you could also elect to publish a news item onto your feed simply by sending an email to your Enfeedia feed account with your news information. Enfeedia will, in effect, fill out the form on your behalf to publish that item.

How do others see a news feed?

Again, there are several ways ... and this is what makes news feeds so powerful. Details will be provided later in this tutorial, but for now, suffice it to say one uses a "news reader". Latest versions of web browsers are news readers and therefore can display news feeds, just as they display web sites.

Enfeedia includes news reading capability (called "NewsPages") such that Enfeedia-hosted news feeds do not require a separate reader. One can simply click a "button" on a user's website, or in their email signature, or any online document, causing the news feed to be displayed. Also, with Enfeedia-hosted news feeds, one can actually display part or all of their news feed directly on their website (using "NewsOnSite"™) such that, each time a new item is added to the feed, their website is automatically updated with that information for all to see, without involving any webmaster tasks or any website modifications or file uploading.

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