Tweet

Feeds, RSS and Podcasts... oh my!

Written by: William Atkin

Article Overview: What RSS feeds and podcasts are and how they affect our business online.

Feeds, RSS and Podcasts... oh my!

There’s a huge buzz about Podcasts and feeds, but do you even understand what they mean. Many people don’t and that’s why it’s so important we understand what feeds and Podcasts are and what they do. Additionally many who know what they are do not even use them properly.

What is a feed?

A feed or “web feed” is a type of data that is used for frequently updating content like blogs, news and radio shows. Many types of feeds can be syndicated through other web sites which means that people can sign up or subscribe to your feed. An aggregator is a program or website that makes all of your feeds accessible in one convenient spot.

Podcasts

A Podcast is a media file that gets distributed using feeds. Typically Podcasts are like online radio shows that allow users to subscribe and download each episode. The most popular use of Podcasts is through I-tunes because many users download their favorite Podcasts directly to their I-pods, making online radio easy. Each publisher decided how the Podcast will work and many of them allow direct downloads and streaming playback for their Podcast.

RSS & Atom

RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” and is a subset of web feeds. RSS is the most commonly used feed protocol and has truly proved itself as “Really Simple”. The RSS feed is a document that contains all the text or a summary from a particular website. RSS is a lot easier than manually checking your favorite blog or news site.

The Atom feed is a feed file type that uses XML. The Atom was created to set a standard in the feed industry and solves some of the problems of other types of feeds. The XML-RPC protocols and the RSS protocols had some problems and the Atom was proposed to solve these problems, hailing the Atom under the IETF “proposed standard”.

Aggregators

There are many types of aggregators and of those most are specific to either RSS feeds or Podcasts. Typically for news or blogs a web based aggregator is the way to go while Podcasts generally are downloaded using a program.

Web Based

Google Reader – Since Google is the most popular search engine it stands to reason its reader would be very popular too. However Google Reader is new and still lacks many features other readers are loved for. Bloglines is well ahead of Google reader for right now.

Bloglines – This online aggregator is by far the most commonly used RSS feed reader. You can have all your favorite news and blogs in one place and each comes with its favicon, making it easily identifiable and maintaining companies brand integrity.

Rojo - Rojo is second only to Bloglines and is becoming increasingly popular. Rojo is also considered a social networking website and is one of the more popular of its kind.

NewsGator – NewsGator is the online version of FeedDemon and is one of the most popular web based aggregators. NewsGator is used most for News but is also very popular for blogs and other feeds.

Programs

FeedDemon – Feed Demon is one of the most widely used Feed readers. While it does cost money there is a free trial available to test it out.

Itunes – Because of the popularity of the I pod, itunes is by far the most popular software used for Podcasting. There are many features itunes has including art work display and a library of your downloaded Podcasts.

Juice – Juice is a very popular podcast aggregator partly because it takes little memory and runs on several different operating systems.

Internet Explorer 7 - Internet Explorer is one of the most popular internet browsers because it comes bundled with the ever popular Microsoft Windows.

Microsoft Outlook – Also one of the most popular mail clients Outlook has a feed reader and can be made your default reader.

Mozilla Firefox – Probably the most popular browser out there right now, this open source free software has a ton of great features including a built in feed reader. Its functions are fairly simple but it’s intuitive and work great.

Mozilla Thunderbird – Also equally popular, Thunderbird is one of the most widely used mail clients and is a decent RSS reader.

Related Articles
  Internet Business Podcasts - A Free & Efficient Way To Learn About Internet Marketing
  HOW TO USE PODCASTING IN YOUR MARKETING STRATEGY
  Why Use Feedburner for Feeds
  Home Party Marketing - Podcasts & Podcasting : The Best Way To Promote Yourself
  ••••••>SEO Tip of the day by GetMeOnTop: Using RSS Feeds for Best in Class #1 SEO

Article Tags: aggregator, Bloglines, feed reader, Google, Google Reader, online radio, Podcast, Podcasts



Related Forum Posts
Facebook and Beacon - What Do You Think - This landed in my inbox. Any thoughts???? Personally, I think they really overstepped the bounds of maintaining personal privacy with this one. Facebook Signals Changes With Beacon David A. Utter | Staff Writer The ringing outcry against Facebook Beacon, which posted people's online purchases to their friends' News Feeds, led to Facebook altering the program. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's aggressive move into referral advertising through the Beacon technology ran into a brick wall of user discontent. After days of complaints that spread throughout the media world, Facebook has changed their Beacon policies. "Users now have more control over the stories that get published to their Mini-Feed and potentially to their friends' News Feeds," the company said. Other details of the changes have been published in the Beacon FAQ available to Facebook members: "If you are logged in to Facebook and visit a Beacon Affiliate, an action you take (like writing a review or purchasing an item), may trigger that website to want to publish a story to Facebook. Before that happens, a notification will display in the lower right corner of your screen. If you click "No Thanks"...no stories or information will be published anywhere on Facebook. If you click "Close" or ignore the story, the story will be sent to Facebook, but not yet published." The previous version of Beacon would go ahead and publish details of a purchase or other conversion activity on a participating website directly to the Facebook user's Mini-Feed, which would then appear on the News Feeds of friends tracking that Mini-Feed. Some people complained that the notification appearing on a Beacon partner site of the pending publication did not appear. Facebook said people were leaving pages before the notification dialogue could be fully displayed, and they have changed the process to confirm the full notification has been shown to the person. Chris
Website Ranking Optimization - There are many myths about SEO but I want to tell you the plain truth. The do-it-yourself person can accomplish just as much as the professional. You must be willing to do many tasks of Website Optimization if you want to succeed. There is much information on the Internet on SEO. Some will tell you that the secret to high rankings is creating and submitting many RSS Feeds. Others will tell you that you need quality reciprocal links. Is there just one way of gaining first page on Google? [link removed by forum administrator]
Re: How To Post A Forum Topic That Gets Responses - Great suggestions... I like this one especially: "Start a Debate - pick a more controversial topic or one that you think people will have strong opinions about - state the case for two sides of the arguement and let your readers go at it. Eg: Video on a DSLR - Would You Use It? and Full or Partial RSS Feeds?" I also like to mix up the topics even if it moves a little bit outside the focus of the forum. It keeps things interesting.
Re: How To Post A Forum Topic That Gets Responses - [quote="barrysarner":kj6e4dqh]Great suggestions... I like this one especially: "Start a Debate - pick a more controversial topic or one that you think people will have strong opinions about - state the case for two sides of the arguement and let your readers go at it. Eg: Video on a DSLR - Would You Use It? and Full or Partial RSS Feeds?" I also like to mix up the topics even if it moves a little bit outside the focus of the forum. It keeps things interesting.[/quote:kj6e4dqh] Hi Barry Generally when a topic has a lot of discussion and debate the subject will move outside the focus of the topic, don't know if you have noticed but this just seems to happen quite naturally. Thanks for bumping this thread up again, it is a good one. MichelleJ


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Selling with Humor (and a Sorry Butt)

You Have A Website What Now

SEO – Link Building Secrets

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.