RSS Feeds

I get asked about RSS feeds by more visitors to the site than anything else. Here is a bit of an explanation regarding RSS feeds. I got most of the information here from Wikipedia.

RSS is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts. An RSS document, called a “feed”, “web feed”, or “channel”, contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with their favorite web sites in an automated manner that’s easier than checking them manually.

A web feed is a data format used for providing users with frequently updated content. Content distributors syndicate a web feed, thereby allowing users to subscribe to it. Making a collection of web feeds accessible in one spot is known as aggregation, which is performed by an Internet aggregator. A web feed is also sometimes referred to as a syndicated feed.

In the typical scenario of using web feeds, a content provider publishes a feed link on their site which end users can register with an aggregator program (also called a feed reader or a news reader) running on their own machines; doing this is usually as simple as dragging the link from the web browser to the aggregator. When instructed, the aggregator asks all the servers in its feed list if they have new content; if so, the aggregator either makes a note of the new content or downloads it. Aggregators can be scheduled to check for new content periodically.

Web feeds have some advantages compared to receiving frequently published content via email:

• When subscribing to a feed, users do not disclose their email address, so users are not increasing their exposure to threats associated with email: spam, viruses, phishing, and identity theft.
• If users want to stop receiving news, they do not have to send an “unsubscribe” request; users can simply remove the feed from their aggregator.
• The feed items are automatically “sorted” in the sense that each feed URL has its own sets of entries (unlike an email box, where all mails are in one big pile and email programs have to resort to complicated rules and pattern matching).

A “Feed Reader” is required for using Web Feeds. This tool works like an automated e-mail program, but no e-mail address is needed. The user subscribes to a particular web feed, and thereafter receives updated contents, every time updating takes place. Feed Readers may be online (like a webmail account) or offline. Feed readers are used in personalized home page services like iGoogle or My Yahoo or My MSN to put content such as news, weather and stock quotes appear on the user’s personal page. Content from other sites can also be added to that personalized page, again using feeds. One of the most popular web-based feed readers at this point is Bloglines, which is also free. Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer 7.0, and many other web browsers allow receipts of feeds from the tool bar using Live Bookmarks, Favorites, and other techniques to integrate feed reading into a browser.

You can subscribe to our sites feed by clicking the orange icon in the top of the rightmost column. We have also added an option to subscribe via email if that is your preference. You can do that by clicking the link that says “Subscribe to The Zohner Family Blog by Email” right below the RSS icon.