RSS Round-up: SharpReader and FeedReader Getting Acquainted with Really Simple Syndication Forrest Stroud
Really Simple Syndication (RSS) technology is increasingly being used for efficiently serving headlines, updated news, and other web content to users. Originally encountered via Netscape's Netcenter back in the late '90s, the XML-formatted RSS feeds are now commonly used across the web to keep subscribers informed of content updates.
Also known as Rich Site Summary, RSS feeds have started to emerge en masse and now populate countless web sites in the form of the familiar orange XML and blue RSS buttons. Even a monolith like Microsoft has gotten into the act by posting updates for its Security Bulletins in RSS format, and of course, you can also ensure that you always stay current with the latest software updates and news via our RSS feeds here at WinPlanet.
From a developer's standpoint, the simplest way to think of an RSS feed is as an easily distributable "What's New" component of your website, one that keeps your users notified of new developments and allows them to retrieve and read up-to-date information.
The only downside is that today's browsers are ill equipped for handling RSS feeds, making an RSS reader, also commonly called an RSS aggregator, a new must-have tool to include in your Internet arsenal.
Much like a web browser renders HTML code into a web page, RSS readers take XML-coded feeds and render the content into a readable, manageable format that enables the user to easily scan, search, and manage RSS feed entries.
RSS readers are still a nascent development, and as such, tend to be short on bells and whistles. They do, however, make working with RSS feeds much easier than your web browser does, and until a browser like Mozilla Firefox incorporates RSS rendering into its code, keeping an RSS reader on hand is essential.
In our first look at RSS readers, we put two of the more popular aggregators, SharpReader and FeedReader, through their paces.
