{"id":149,"date":"2010-04-25T03:27:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-24T21:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ashokaon.tech\/blog\/?p=149"},"modified":"2020-07-18T01:19:47","modified_gmt":"2020-07-17T19:49:47","slug":"what-is-an-rss-feed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ashokaon.tech\/blog\/what-is-an-rss-feed\/","title":{"rendered":"What is an RSS feed and how to use it? (especially for developers)"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Note: This blog post was originally published under my old domain(codesmiles.com), here<\/a>. Web Archive link<\/a>.<\/span>
\nUpdate: <\/strong>Google Reader is in the process of discontinuation, I use digg\u2019s feed reader<\/a> these days.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"feedlogo\" Even though RSS is out there for a long time, there are people(even programmers) who still don\u2019t really know what an RSS feed is, even if they know what it is, most of the them don\u2019t really understand how feeds can be helpful for them.<\/p>\n

If you ask to some of your friends about..\u201cfeed\u201d, \u201cweb feed\u201d, \u201cRSS feed\u201d or \u201cATOM feed\u201d, they may say \u201cI am not sure\u201d, but if you ask them.. \u201cnoted an orange icon in the browser\u2019s address bar?\u201d they most probably say \u201cyes\u201d.. everyone notes that.<\/p>\n

So I thought of writing a post to introduce feeds(for those who don\u2019t yet know) and the benefits I have noted when using them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What is an RSS feed or ATOM feed or web feed?<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s a way a website provides updated content which you can read via your feed reader. It\u2019s generally called web feed. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, more about RSS here<\/a>. There is another popular format called ATOM, more here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What is a Feed Reader?<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s a software or web application you can use to subscribe to the feeds of websites. You can use feed readers to aggregate all of your favorite websites\u2019 feeds in an organized way. Feed readers automatically<\/strong> check the feeds and let you know if any new content is available in the website, you can configure how often you want to do this check. You can read the new content in your feed reader itself.<\/p>\n

You can try Feed Demon<\/a>, Google Reader<\/a>, etc. Even latest versions of all popular browsers provide options to subscribe to feeds, but I recommend a feed reader application as it could provide more options to manage your feeds, for example, accessing in any PC if it\u2019s a web application(or has online synchronization), categorizing feeds, etc.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How to subscribe to a feed?<\/h2>\n