Will RSS Readers Clog the Web?

        News aggregators may be the best new tools to appear on the Web since the browser, but as the programs and the underlying RSS standard grow more popular, some question whether the Internet will be able to handle the traffic. 

            Aggregators, sometimes called newsreaders or RSS readers, are a hybrid of a Web browser and an e-mail program, allowing Web users to peruse hundreds of information sources. The beauty of an aggregator is that it displays articles from hundreds of websites in one place, so the user doesn't have to pull up the sites individually.

            But some are wondering: What happens when everyone discovers the power of aggregators? Will the Web be able to handle it? In Internet boom-speak, will it scale? 

            Already, aggregators have swamped some sites, slowing Web servers and eating up expensive bandwidth, according to bloggers and other Web publishers. The end may be near, unless something changes soon.

            Some think a solution to the problem might be found by integrating desktop applications into a peer-to-peer network, which would distribute the load among hundreds of clients. A central server would coordinate various readers, allowing some to check the original source of the information and passing on new information.

            Still, the explosion of RSS readers shouldn't overwhelm servers as long as the readers use the right protocol. If implemented properly, the check for new content is an "infinitesimal" burden.

Aggregators and Atom

           Atom being a newer format than RSS, not all aggregators are capable (as of February 2004) of reading Atom feeds. Many new versions of aggregators are, a comprehensive listing of which is available at The AtomEnabled Directory. 

           Some websites produce only Atom feeds and not RSS feeds (most notably those published using the Blogger software), so if you want to read the feeds of these websites, or want to make use of the advantages of Atom feeds, then you would want an aggregator that can understand Atom. 

           If you enjoy using an aggregator that doesn’t understand Atom, but you still want to read websites that syndicate in Atom but not RSS, you can use a tool that converts Atom feeds into RSS feeds, such as Atom2RSS, by 2RSS.

Online Aggregators

I'd like to represent a list of online Aggregators with their advantages and disadvantages:

Bloglines

Advantages:

• all major browsers supported (e.g. Netscape Navigator, Internet Explorer, Firefox)
• user-friendly especially for beginners
• free, web-based aggregator
• easy registration
• no advertisements
• contains its own directory of RSS feeds of thousands of websites
• personal email account for subscribing to newsletter emails (optional)
• allows privacy adjustments for personal blogs
• allows saved searches
• mobile version available
• 10 languages supported
• additional add-on tools for automated blogrolls and subscription buttons

NewsGator

Advantages:

• free (consumer-standard version)
• provides personalized news channel
• allows translation of RSS articles into email format
• synchronization of feeds in several devices possible
• browse and search feed capabilities save time on surfing
• allows keyword filtering
• blog headlines
• button-click automatic subscription to news feeds

Disadvantage:

• Outlook-based thus limited to Windows

My Yahoo

Advantages:

• Free web-based aggregator
• user-friendly
• customizable home page design
• button-click subscription to RSS feeds
• built-in directory and search tool for feeds
• wide variety of feeds e.g. news (science, technology, local), weather
• connects to all Yahoo features and services

Disadvantage

• banner advertisements

There are also lightweight RSS aggregator extensions which are actually plug-ins to existing internet browsers. An example of which is

Sage aggregator

Advantages:

• free of charge
• beginner-friendly
• reeds both RSS and Atom feeds
• allows feed discovery
• can be assimilated to Firefox bookmark (storage and live)
• allows OPML feed lists imports and exports
• customizable style sheets
• supports a wide range of locales e.g. Catalan, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Korean, Polish, Slovenian, etc.
• easy installation

Disadvantages:

• good for about 12 RSS feeds
• limited use to Mozilla-Firefox and Mozilla-Firefox supported browsers

Aggregators with podcasting capabilities

Aggregators with podcasting capabilities can automatically download media files, such as MP3 recordings. In some cases, these can be automatically loaded onto portable media players (like iPods) when they are connected to the end-user's computer.

Media aggregators are sometimes referred to as "Podcatchers" due to the popularity of the term "podcast" used to refer to a web feed containing audio or video. Media aggregators refer to applications, client software or Web based, which maintain subscriptions to feeds that contain audio or video media enclosures. They can be used to automatically download media, playback the media within the application interface, or synchronize media content with a portable media player.

Recently, so-called RSS-narrators have appeared, which not only aggregate text-only news feeds, but also convert them into audio recordings for offline listening.

RSS readers for Windows

I'd like to represent a list of RSS Readers, which are extremely good for Windows. Some of them have definite specifications due to the area of their working. Enjoy working with them!

Omea – one of the most fully featured RSS readers out there; can get a little slow as its database grows; free in its basic version, also has a commercial, advanced version with more features
 

Mozilla Thunderbird – Mozilla’s e-mail and RSS reader, supports skins and add-ons
 

Awasu – RSS reader with a customizable user interface, the ability to synchronize with other readers, bookmarking and annotation, and republishing of your feeds
 

GreatNews – integrates with Bloglines, and offers a very fast way to browse through your feeds
 

RSS Bandit – RSS reader that offers organization of your feeds through folders, as well as synchronization across several installations
 

IntraVNews – an RSS reader that integrates with Microsoft’s Outlook.
 

SharpReader – requires .NET framework, lets you organize feeds into folders, integrates with Feedster, can display new items via system tray popups
 

eCruiser – an RSS reader in Japanese
 

Juice – a pretty basic RSS reader
 

Opera – Opera web browser comes with a fully featured RSS reader
 

FeedDemon – Newsgator’s feed reader offering a high degree of customization, newspaper-style feed reading, synchronization with other Newsgator products, and feed search
 

Snarfer – a free RSS reader, with key features being river of news style view, embedded video display, synchronization with Bloglines, powerful search and filtering
 

Active RSS Reader – simple RSS reader with a very small hard disk and memory footprint
 

Feed Amasser – a very lightweight, freeware RSS reader
 

FeedExpress – a freeware, open source RSS reader; quite basic, but with some nice features, for example CSS customization
 

Crackfeed – a tiny systray based application that notifies you with RSS news as they come
 

HappyFish – RSS reader and podcast client, requires NET 2.0
 

Attensa for Outlook – RSS reader that fully integrates with Outlook, support OPML import/export, scheduling, republishing, and advanced feed organization
 

Briz RSS Reader – a very simple RSS reader
 

Particls – desktop RSS notifier and ticker with lots of options, also has a Firefox plugin
 

Anothr – RSS reader/bot for Skype/Gtalk/MSN

RSS functional components

The RSS function is made up of the following components:

• Feed reader
• Feed sources input
• Feed aggregator
• Feed results output

These simple components combine to provide a powerful RSS feed aggregator function that can be integrated with other applications in a variety of ways.

Overview of RSS functional components: 

• The feed reader component does the bulk of the job and focuses on obtaining feeds provided by a given feed source. A feed source is nothing but a URL at which a particular content provider periodically syndicates the content for a given information category. For instance, a feed source might point to a URL at which the New York Times publishes all its latest news blurbs about the business category/channel using the XML-based RSS format.
• The feed aggregator component takes several user-specified feed sources as input and then it invokes the feed reader component to get all feed items from each customized feed source.
• The feed sources input component defines and reads the details about the user-specified feed sources. The feed source details can be provided in the form of a string stored in system memory, via an input file, or as records in a database.
• The feed results output component stores the aggregated RSS feed item results received from a particular feed source. It can store the results as a string in system memory, into a file, or into database tables.

Because the Web is all about information, RSS will continue to play a central role in determining how that information is syndicated and disseminated in powerful and useful ways.

Pros and Cons of RSS Feeds

If you are struggling with the decision of whether to implement RSS feeds or not, consider the following pros and cons for webmasters who use RSS feeds as part of their content and communication plan...

Benefits (Pros Of Using RSS)

The benefits for a webmaster who opts to implement RSS feeds on their website are numerous: 

1. Saves Time
RSS feeds save time. RSS subscribers can quickly scan RSS feeds, without having to visit each and every website. Subscribers can then click on any items they are interested in, to get additional information.

2. Timely
RSS feeds are timely. RSS feeds will automatically update themselves any time new information is posted, so the information your subscribers receive via their RSS reader or news aggregator is timely.

3. Spam Free
RSS is free of spam. Subscribers don't have to worry about wading through huge amounts of spam in an attempt to get to the information they are actually interested in.

4. Opt-In
The RSS subscriber chooses what they want to see, and what information they wish to receive. Knowing they have full control, and that they do not have to provide any personal information to subscribe, they will be more likely to opt-in.

5. Unsubscribing Is Easy
It is also easy to unsubscribe from an RSS feed. If they do not like information contained in an RSS feed, they can simply remove the RSS feed from their RSS reader or news aggregator in order to unsubscribe.

6. Alternate Communication Channel
RSS provides you with an alternate communication channel for your business. And the more channels you provide, the more opportunities you have to connect with your customers and potential customers.

7. Expands Audience Through Syndication
The very nature of RSS is that it is designed specifically for syndication (i.e. publication by others). And wide-spread syndication can expand a company's reach and strengthen the company brand.

8. Can Increase Backlinks
When an RSS feed is syndicated, it can increase the number of links back to the original website. And additional incoming links will often help a website rank better in organic search rankings.

9. Increases Productivity
RSS increases productivity, allowing people to quickly scan new posts and headlines, and only clicking through and spending time on the items of interest.

10. Competitive
Whether you decide to implement RSS feeds or not, your competitors likely will. So one way to remain competitive is to implement RSS feeds and other web 2.0 technology, and not allow your competition to get ahead of you. 

Negatives (Cons Against Using RSS)

1. Not Widely Adopted Yet
Outside of technical circles, RSS has not yet been widely adopted. While it is becoming more and more popular, it is still far from being a mainstream technology.

2. Content Can Easily Be Copied
Content contained in an RSS feed can easily be copied and replicated, regardless of whether you want it to be or not. Few aggregators respect the copyrights of content contained in an RSS feed.

3. Tracking Subscribers Is Difficult
It is very difficult to accurately track the number of subscribers who read an RSS feed or the items contained in an RSS feed. This is due in part to the fact that at its heart, RSS is all about achieving the widest syndication possible.

4. Source Origination Difficult
It is sometimes difficult to discern the origin of an RSS feed item. When an item is syndicated, the source is not always indicated. The metrics available are not always reflective of the traffic received.

Weigh the pros and cons of implementing an RSS feed as a communication channel, and determine whether the benefits outweigh the risks in your own situation.

How News Aggregators / RSS Readers Work

1.) Websites summarize content in an RSS feed. (see FeedForAll a feed creation tool for help)

2.) Visitors download an RSS readers. There are generally two different types of RSS readers. The first kind of feed reader is a self contained program, the second kind of feed reader use a web browser. Many of the programs are free, but generally those that have a small fee are more robust.

3.) Visitors select the content and summaries they wish to view in a news aggregator or RSS reader. (news aggregator and rss reader are essentially interchangeable).

4.) Content is added to the news reader by entering the url or web address of the XML file. Sites that have an RSS feed available typically have an orange rss or xml graphic like this -. Clicking on the graphic will provide the url of the feed. Some RSS readers will auto-detect an xml file on a site indicating that a feed is available.

5.) Each time the feed is updated the content being viewed in the RSS reader indicates that there is new content. This insures that the customer has current information related to the topics they choose.

6.) Professionals estimate that RSS will soon rival email's popularity as a content delivery method.

How to make an RSS Feed?

Today, thanks to new "html scraping" services available to everyone, RSS feeds can be automatically generated for just about any web site, no matter what kind of layout, coding or language it is written in. In some situations, to create a standard RSS feed from any web page that does not have one may take less than a minute, while in other cases, where your needs for customization are higher, you may need to spend a little more time. 

Any web page today can be made to generate a RSS feed automatically. By the owner or, as it will increasingly happen, by someone else who wants to be informed in near-real-time of any news and content updates made on it.

FeedYes is the latest entry in this small group of online services which allow anyone to create/generate automatically a RSS feed for any web page. FeedYes, has really found a simple and truly effective route to simplify this task while providing good enough a solution to satisfy most needs.

While it is not perfect, it is quite good and fast at doing what it does. It is also rather simple to use, and once you have gone through it once, creating a second feed for another site, may take literally only a few seconds.

FeedYes is a three-step process that involves:

a) providing the URL of the page out of which an automatic RSS feed needs to be created,
b) indicating among the dynamic links found by FeedYes on the specifiied URL, which one is the first that refers to the content section that you are interested in (all web pages have different content sections in the same page, and you probably do not want to create a feed for the comments section or for the most recent articles appearing on the same site), 
c) indicating in the updated list of links FeedYes will spit out the last relevant link pertaining to your selected content section.

In this way, FeedYes isolates with good precision (you are the one effectively guiding) the specific content section you are interested in (say the Latest News) and creates an RSS feed for it.

Feed43 is an online service that converts standard web pages or XML documents to RSS feeds. Feed43 does so by extracting snippets of text or HTML by applying specific search patterns to the document from which the feed needs to be extracted. The search patterns help Feed43 understand exactly which content to grab from a page and which not. 

This allows for a much more precise control of what will be contained in a feed at the expense of the ease of use and accessibility of the overall product itself. For technically savvy users this is in fact an excellent and very reliable approach to RSS feed generation but for non-technical users Feed43 may scare off lots of users in a matter of minutes. 

In Feed43 the set of steps required to create a custom RSS feed for a web page that has none are as follows:

a) Identify the web page from which to generate a RSS feed.
b) Create a RSS feed on Feed43 pointing to that web page.
c) Define search patterns required.
d) Specify output templates required.
e) Generate the new RSS feed. 

All feeds created with Feed43 are "public", but optionally Feed43 also allows you to protect any newly created RSS feed with a password. The service is free.

This video shows you how to make an RSS feed both from coding and using freeware.Click the link below to view:

http://www.5min.com/Video/How-to-Make-An-RSS-Feed-197312754

What do I need to do to read an RSS Feed?

           News and current affairs have never been as dynamic as they are today. Gone are the days when we used to wait for the newest or hottest information across the globe. 

           Feed Reader or News Aggregator software allows you to grab the RSS feeds from various sites and display them for you to read and use.

           A variety of RSS Readers are available for different platforms. Some popular feed readers include Amphetadesk (Windows, Linux, Mac), FeedReader (Windows), and NewsGator (Windows - integrates with Outlook). There are also a number of web-based feed readers available. My Yahoo, Bloglines, and Google Reader are popular web-based feed readers.

          Once you have your Feed Reader, it is a matter of finding sites that syndicate content and adding their RSS feed to the list of feeds your Feed Reader checks. Many sites display a small icon with the acronyms RSS, XML, or RDF to let you know a feed is available.

          An RSS aggregator can come in various web-based forms which are easily accessible anywhere as long as there’s internet. Bloglines and Google Reader are good example of it. An aggregator can also be integrated in common computer applications like aggregating OPML files, email processing and documentation in which it functions as a plug-in that work from within a host application collecting and alerting the computer user of the newest RSS feeds. Nowadays, another type of RSS aggregator has come up and is referred to as media aggregator. It is just an RSS aggregator that not only collects written feeds but also those in audio and video formats. One can use a media aggregator to download, playback and even upload the feeds collected into a portable devise.

RSS. Introduction

Let me introduce an extremely useful theme about RSS Aggregators. To begin with, I'd like to explain, what RSS is. RSS is an acronym for Really Simple Syndication and Rich Site Summary. RSS is an XML-based format for content distribution. An RSS feed is a set of instructions residing on the computer server of a Web site, which is given upon request to a subscriber’s RSS reader, or aggregator. The feed tells the reader when new material—such as a news article, a blog posting, or an audio or a video clip—has been published on the Web site. The aggregator monitors any number of sites’ feeds.