Web's feeding frenzy

Jeff Smith, Rocky Mountain News

Published September 24, 2007 at midnight

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When you see the icon to the right online, does it:

A. Make things really loud if you keep clicking on it.

B. Point online users to Web sites with high-definition radio.

C. Indicate an available RSS feed.

D. Convey an established Wi-Fi connection.

If you answered A, you really don't have a clue and should read on.

B and D aren't right either, but at least you're recognizing tech-like lingo.

If you answered C, you probably have a few RSS feeds and can stop here.

If you don't have a few RSS feeds, here are some facts to savor.

J.B. Holston subscribes to 400 Web pages or sources of content on the Internet and receives about 5,000 pieces of information a day.

The information is all fed into one bucket, thanks to a news reader or "aggregator" produced by his Denver-based company, NewsGator Technologies.

"It's so much more convenient than if I had to run out to more than 400 sources (separately for the information)," Holston said. "I still go to separate Web sites, but I always start here."

Holston, of course, is in the business, but he also represents a growing number of Americans who use what are called RSS feeds to customize their Internet content. Some have characterized it as a personal wire service.

In Holston's case, he uses a Web feeder to read articles about his company, the RSS industry, current events, politics, even news from major swimming organizations (his teenage son is a competitive swimmer).

RSS, which generally stands for Real Simple Syndication, also is an easy way for you to be alerted when new content appears on one of your favorite Web sites.

Jason Cormier, co-founder and managing partner for Boulder-based Room 214, an RSS marketing company, notes that RSS serves as an anonymous, private, password-protected subscription, "unlike e-mail and having your inbox stuffed with spam."

How to set up an RSS feed

To set up a feed, you need to use what is called a news reader, or aggregator. That's a piece of software that collects the Web feeds into one place so you can read them.

The feed may include just the headline and a summary, with a link to the full article, or it may include the entire content.

MyYahoo, Google Reader and myMSN are among the most popular readers and are free. You can find MyYahoo and myMSN by going to the left-hand corners of Yahoo.com and MSN.com, respectively. You can find Google Reader by typing in Google.com/reader.

Denver-based NewsGator (NewsGator.com) has a free reader and charges $29.99 for other readers tailored for users of Apple Macintosh computers, Microsoft Outlook and mobile devices including the iPhone. A product called FeedDemon has received high praise from a number of technology reviewers.

"It really depends on where and when you want to access your stuff," said J.B. Holston, NewsGator's chief executive. For example, FeedDemon "sits on your desktop and even if you're not online you can access your content."

This reporter subscribed to a 30-day trial of FeedDemon and got a pop-up alert of new content on his computer screen while talking to Holston.

How to select content for your feeds

News readers generally include a short tutorial to explain how to use them, then relatively simple instructions for adding and deleting content.

Some have menus of suggested Web sites to subscribe to. You can type in keywords of content you are interested in, say the name of a political candidate or sports team. You can add specific Web addresses or URLs from your favorite Web sites.

If, for example, you want to get specific parts of the Rocky Mountain News every day, you could click RSS at the top right-hand corner of the Rocky's Web site. That opens a page that lists individual topics and columnists available as RSS feeds.

You then can click on the topics or columnists of interest (XML format) and copy the URL addresses at the top of page into your news reader. All sorts of content is available through RSS feeds: news, sports, entertainment, blogs, podcasts and product announcements.

What is RSS?

• RSS is a format for feeding information or content from a Web site to another location. In essence, it allows you to see new content from Web sites you select - but in one place. You get the latest headlines and video in one place without having to visit the sites you've taken the feed from.

• RSS most commonly stands for Really Simple Syndication, or sometimes Rich Site Summary.

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