Fierce Discussions

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What is RSS?

The initials “RSS” are used to refer to the following formats but is using the same technology:

• Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0)
• RDF Site Summary (RSS 1.0 and RSS 0.90)
• Rich Site Summary (RSS 0.91)

RSS lets me distribute a list of headlines, update notices, and content to a wide number of people that have subscribed to my RSS feed. In most cases, these subscribed blog visitors have clicked on the RSS icon or RSS link and completed the easy subscription process.

RSS content can be read using software called an “RSS reader”, “feed reader” or an “aggregator”. The reader checks the user’s subscribed feeds regularly for new content, downloading any updates that it finds.

A big advantage by using an RSS reader is the fact that you don’t have to browse hundreds of different websites to check if new posts/articles have been added.

When your RSS reader checks for updates, you will get a notification that announces a new post. You will save yourself a lot of time.

In one sentence, RSS is:
a mean of transmitting and updating news in an automated way.

By selecting only RSS feeds that you are interested in, you create your own customized “newspaper”.

Using FeedBurner Service

For my blog, I use the RSS service from FeedBurner. By using this service, I am able to receive statistics about the number of subscribers on my site. This is important for me so I can measure the succes of my site.

Please know that FeedBurner does not give me your personal information so I don’t know your name, address, age and so on.

The following information has been published on the FeedBurner website, hosted by Google:

The FeedBurner Stats service for feeds provides the following feed-related information:

• Subscription data (e.g. number of subscribers by day, previous week, last 30 days and all time) and Reach data (the estimated number of individuals clicking or viewing your feed content in a given day)
• Breakdown of feed readers and aggregators, email services, web browsers and bots by which subscribers are accessing your content
• Clickthrough tracking
• Uncommon uses — sites where your content has been resyndicated including other blogs, directories and even spam sites
• Item enclosure downloads (podcasts)
• Live hits, conveniently translated to your local time zone

The FeedBurner Stats service for websites provides the following information for my blog:

• Visitor summary and detail
• Page summary and detail
• Visitor and referral trends
• Inbound referral traffic breakdown
• Outbound click breakdown
• Visitor city cloud
• Percentage inbound traffic from search and the specific queries that drove the traffic
• Percentage traffic from other direct links and the specific pages that drove that traffic
• Percentage visitors that are new visitors to your site today
• Browser, OS and screen resolution breakdown, with trend indicators
• Detailed historical traffic by page

Free RSS Readers

Below you will find a list of free RSS readers. Please, check out the rss reader websites on how to install and configure the RSS reader. RSS Readers are easy to install and you will improve your web experience.

Read books about RSS:

Syndicating Web Sites with RSS Feeds For Dummies ®

Developing Feeds with RSS and Atom

Secrets of RSS (Visual QuickStart Guide)