A “feed” is, at it’s most basic, syndicated web content. The most common type of feed is the RSS (Really Simple Syndication). Atom is another format of feed. The RSS feed symbol is commonly displayed as a little orange boxed icon with white stripes. Graphic artists have become very creative with the symbol, and have created innumerable designs for the RSS icon.
RSS feeds simplify web reading. Instead of hopping from website to website to website, waiting for some to load and seeing others that have not updated their content, RSS feeds simplify website surfing. You can subscribe to RSS feeds and have the syndicated content delivered to you via email or a feed reader. There are literally hundreds of various feed readers, too: email programs such as Windows Live Mail and Thunderbird offer a feed reader; browsers such as Firefox and Opera have feed readers; Firefox sports many addon feed readers such as Feedly and NewsFox; and there are browser-viewed readers such as Google Reader, Bloglines, MyYahoo, and many more.
I Have a Blog; Where is My Feed?
It depends. Your blog feed is most likely automatically generated, and your readers can access your blog feed through the browser. I use Firefox, and Firefox has a convenient built-in feed capability. If you look to the right of the address bar, you will spot the RSS feed icon for my blog.
If you click that icon, Firefox will direct you to my feed page. Notice that I manage my feeds through a third party named Feedburner. My blog’s feed url is in the address bar: http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheOlderGeek.
At this feed page, you can click the drop down menu to choose how to syndicate my feeds. You can use the built-in Live Bookmarks feature through Firefox itself (Firefox will create a folder of feeds and update the feeds regularly as I write new ones), or you can use your own feed reader, such as Google or MyYahoo or some other reader you prefer.
Additionally, as a blog owner, you can choose who will manage your blog feeds. You can configure your feeds to go through a third party, such as Feedburner, instead of the basic built-in browser feed. The advantage to Feedburner over a “regular” feed distributor is that you can monitor your subscriptions and watch your stats. Feedburner also offers some nice features, such as email subscription feeds for your readers, chicklets and small buttons to promote other blogs and feeds, and other ways to promote your blog content.
A blog does not have to make feeds available to his or her readers. It’s not necessary. However, it is a great convenience to your readers. Moreover, if you are a pro-blogger (or aspire to be), advertisers do look at your feed subscription stats to judge how popular your blog is, which affects your income.
If you’d like to know more about the fascinating world of RSS, you may like WebReference’s series Introduction to RSS.
Mon, May 3, 2010
"What Is a...?"