Be the first to get
PanOnTheNet.com's headlines as soon as they are
published? Want to find a way to save time if you read many
websites? This FAQ will show you how, and will answer some
of the common questions about
When Steel Talk's
new news feeds.
- What is a news feed?
- How do I subscribe to
PanOnTheNet.com's news feeds?
- Where can I find a list of
all PanOnTheNet.com feeds?
- What is a news reader?
- Should I use a news reader?
- What is RSS?
- What is syndication?
- Where can I find out more about
syndication?
What is a news feed?
A news feed (also known as an RSS feed) is a listing of a
website's content. It is updated whenever new content is
published to the site. News readers "subscribe" to news
feeds, which means they download lists of stories at an
interval that you specify (every 30 minutes, for example),
and present them to you in your news reader. A news feed
might contain a list of story headlines, a list of excerpts
from the stories, or a list containing each story from the
website (PanOnTheNet.com's news feeds contain story
excerpts). All news feeds will have a link back to the
website, so if you see a headline / excerpt / story you
like, you can click on the link for that piece of content
and will be taken to the website to read it.
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How do I subscribe to PanOnTheNet.com's news feeds?
Step one is to download your favorite news reader. If you
have never used one before, try installing one of the news
readers mentioned below and see
which one you like.
Point your news reader to the addesses below for each
feed you want to subscribe to.
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Where can I find a list of all PanOnTheNet.com feeds?
You can find a complete list of PanOnTheNet.com feeds
over here.
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What is a news reader?
A news reader (also known as a news aggregator) is simply
a piece of software that you can use to read your subscribed
news feeds. It is to news feeds what Outlook, Hotmail, and
Entourage are to email.
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Should I use a news reader?
The short answer: it depends.
The longer answer: if you visit a lot of websites on
daily basis, or read a lot of weblogs (or "blogs"), a news
reader can save you a lot of time. Sites like
ABCNews.com,
Salon, and the
New York Times all have syndicated feeds.
Using a news reader to consume your web media means that
you only need to visit a website when you read a story in
your news reader that is of interest to you. You won't have
to visit many sites multiple times every day to see if there
are updates; your news reader will do that for you and will
let you know when there is a new story to be read!
So if you visit a lot of websites regularly, or want to
be alerted automatically when your websites publishes a new
story, using a news reader might make sense.
Some commonly used news readers are
Feed Demon,
Sharp
Reader, and
NewsGator (an Outlook plugin) for Windows,
NetNewsWire and
Shrook for Macs, and
Bloglines.com for those who like web-based readers.
You can find even more news readers at
itopik.com.
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What is RSS?
Depending on whom you ask, the acronym RSS stands for
"Really Simple Syndication", "Rich Site Summary", or any of
a handful of others.
The meaning of the acronym is not terribly important,
however. An RSS feed (also known as a
news feed) is a site's syndicated news feed that you
subscribe to using your news reader.
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What is syndication?
Syndication refers to the process that occurs when
a publisher provides content in a form that can be consumed
by software (like a news reader).
The concept is similar to email: the publisher writes you an email about
a subject (the content). Your favorite email
program (the software) receives the email, and probably
alerts you with gentle "You've got mail!"
With a syndicated PanOnTheNet.com feed, it works like
this: PanOnTheNet.com (the publisher) publishes a story
about a subject (the content). Your favorite news reader (the
software) sees that PanOnTheNet.com has published a new
story, and probably alerts you with a flashing icon on your
screen.
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Where can I find more about syndication?
There is a thorough explanation of syndication at
Dynamic Objects.
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