FeedForAll: Address All Your RSS Needs With One Tool Tapping into RSS Technology Lee Underwood
RSS technology is really taking off. According to a recent study, 5% of Internet users say they use RSS. That's almost 46,700,000 users! Most news sites now publish RSS feeds. Aside from news, these feeds
can also be used for announcing new products, Web site updates, blogs, and anything else to keep your visitors informed. WebReference even has a list of RSS feeds for many of the Web sites on internet.com.
RSS feeds allow users to view a large amount of information without having to visit several Web sites to obtain it. This information can be gathered by an RSS reader ("aggregator") and read in one place and is described as "syndicating content."
As a Web developer, part of your job may be to create RSS feeds or develop a method that a client can use directly. In the past, this was usually done manually or through the use of Perl scripts, but now there are several software applications that make the creation process much easier.
FeedForAll is one of those programs. Created by NotePage, Inc., FeedForAll was first released in November 2004. It helps users create, edit, and publish RSS feeds, and is easy to use. You don't have to concern yourself with the actual coding of the feed; the software takes care of all of that.
Creating a new feed can be done manually or by using the New Feed Wizard. Either way, you will need to enter the title of the feed, a description, and a link to the content on your site. There are other fields but they're optional. Next, you need to create the items you want listed in the feed by entering the title, description, a link to the full story, and publication date of each item. Repeat the process for all items that you want to include. Then, save the file, and all that remains is to upload it to your Web site. Images can be added in the description field, if desired.
