If you prefer to be notified of and / or have new content delivered automatically, then you may subscribe to our newsfeeds (to be read using an XML feed reader).
- Entries — Full text of entries delivered via this feed.
- Comments — Full text of comments to entries delivered via this feed.
New to feeds or feed syndication?
If you are new to feed syndication, then we recommend you to read this article. This is an attempt to explain the use, advantages and convenience of using feeds when compared with convential methods of subscription (such as mailing lists).
Feed syndication is analogous to e-mail, only better
Let’s begin with what you’re used to. You’re familiar with e-mail, right? You read it as you receive it in your inbox. Well, feeds are similar in analogy.
Software or service
For receiving and reading your email, you’d either need a software client (like Outlook Express, Outlook, Eudora or others) or a service (such as Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, Gmail or others). Similarly, for reading site feeds, you’ll need a feed software or a service (see our recommendation on software or feed syndication service below).
All feed software (or services) have an option to add new feed. Click on it (or select), cut and paste the feed link in it. It will then query the site for new posts and sync it in your client (software or service). So, actually you’re letting your software (or service) pull the latest posts, news articles from websites for you. Simple, eh?
Change of habit
If you read a lot of websites in the conventional way, i.e., via a web browser (like Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox or Safari), then change that habit, let your software (or service) notify you of new things instead of you checking them out every day. That way, you save precious time and also get to read more content rather than just browsing.
With blogs and sites including your favorite newspapers (that get updated often), feeds are becoming a standard method of offering content to their readers without requiring any details (such as their email addresses) from interested readers.
What are those colored buttons that I see on websites?
You mean those orange or those blue ones? Yes, those are the feed links. And don’t worry about the color or XML, RSS, Atom, RDF written over them either. XML is the technology feeds use to provide you the updated content, and all those terms are the derivatives of this technology. Generally, most clients (software or service) provide a minimum RSS and Atom support.
Feed links spit-out junk code
Feed links are not meant to be actually clicked. Since the code that you actually see is a machine readable language, it is really meant for your software to sync and interpret it for you. So, the next time you see feed links, copy them instead of clicking on them to use in your feed reader.
What software, service would you recommend?
FeedReader (free) and FeedDemon (paid) are good feed readers. Greatnews is another wonderful free alternative. Among the web-based feed-services, we like Google Reader and Bloglines.
I can read the feed, but it looks so pale compared to the website
Well, look at it this way: if the content is more important to you and you want to read the updates regularly, then consider the feed. If instead, you love reading them on the website in its full graphical glory, you could always use the article link and open it in your web browser, but keep yourself automatically updated via a feed reader. Sounds fun? Thought so.
Any other advantages of using a feed, besides updates?
Well, the speed for one. If you’re using a dial-up access to the internet, then you’ll appreciate the download time. All the posts on certain clients are actually downloaded and saved as cache, so you could read them offline too (just like your e-mail). In addition, you’ll also be doing site owners a favor by reading their content via feed that has lesser bandwidth requirement.
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