What is a news feed?

A news feed, also called RSS feed or XML feed, is a way you can get a quick snapshot of one or more websites without having to visit them. The feed extracts headlines, summaries, links, or whole articles and delivers them on request. For example, a BBC world news feed is included on this site.

What are the advantages of news feeds?

News feeds are not a magic bullet or a perfect solution for all your information needs. However, they do have some nice features:

• You can collect feeds on a given topic all in one place, combine those from different sources, eliminate duplicates.
• You can quickly scan headlines, topics, summaries from different sites.
• Items are automatically kept up to date.
• There are (so far) few annoyances such as ads, spam and popups.

The main use on this site is probably to get a quick, up-to-date listing of the newest journal articles and news items.

How do I use news feeds?

To use news feeds, you need one of these:

• a browser such as Firefox, Opera or Safari that can handle the feeds directly or
• a standalone news reader program (also called "aggregators;" several good ones are available free) or
• a plugin to give your browser the ability to use feeds.
• A website such as Bloglines or my.Yahoo.com

One list of news readers for different systems (Mac, PC, Linux, web-based) is found here. If the idea of installing new software does not appeal to you, Bloglines or my.Yahoo may be the best way to start.

In Firefox, you just click on the feed icon () on the bottom window bar, and select the feed to subscribe to. The feed will be added to your bookmarks as a "live bookmark" meaning that it will automatically be updated.

With other news readers, you use one method or another to add the feed's URI (web address) to the reader. Addresses are usually flagged by an orange button like though the text may vary (RSS, RSS 2.0, Atom, ...). On the Evangel site, look for the "Subscribe" box as seen at the right.

Getting the feed address

Method 1: Copy and paste

• Right-click on one of the feed icons then select "Copy link location" or "Copy shortcut." or
• Click on a feed icon, which will usually take you to the raw, unformatted feed information. Do not bother with the information, but copy the URI (address link) from the browser's address bar.
• After copying the URI, go to the news feeder, do whatever is needed to create a new feed ("channel")  and paste the link.

Method 2: Drag and drop

Some readers support "dropping" links onto them. Just click on the feed icon (or link), hold down the left mouse button and drag the link onto the news reader, then release the mouse button.

Method 3: Use news reader to collect feed URI

Most readers have a ways of finding and inserting feed URIs. For example, you may be able to just search on some words then choose from a list of matching feeds.

There are several varieties of feeds including at present three levels of RSS and two of Atom. Usually any will work fine, though your reader may show different details depending on the flavor of feed you use. If you don't know which variation to use, choose RSS 2.0.

The BBC site has a good introductory page. Other useful pages include:

• Feedster Introduction to Feeds  (basic)
• All About RSS
• 15 Ways To Read An RSS Feed
• How to Read RSS feeds (CNET)

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