Marketing | RSS Who Uses It, Why, and How-To...
RSS Specs Last Updated: 8 January 2006
We run an RSS feed on this website, but it's not really utilized to its full potential as a marketing tool. We designed it in response to visitors who wanted
a quick means to keep apprised of new developments onsite. The problem is, I've got too many irons in the fire and maintaining the feed requires discipline.
Is it really worth the effort? According to my stats, the feed is currently accessed less than slightly less than 1,000 per month. Though small, that's a significant number.
Who Uses RSS?
According to ClickZ Experts writer Enid Burns
(11 October 2005), reporting on a new white paper from Ipsos Insight
for Yahoo!, many people already use newsfeeds without knowing it, but
...[t]he number of tech-savvy Internet users who knowingly sign up for RSS syndicated content is only four percent, while
another 12 percent are somewhat aware of the term RSS. Twenty-seven percent of adult Internet users access RSS feeds through
personalized start pages, though they don't know that's what they're doing on personalized portal pages.
RSS readers had previously been identified as male, young, educated, and affluent, but when unaware users are added to the
mix, the demographic represents a more average Web user. Those who customize their start-up pages with preferred news and
content are 55 percent female, 45 percent male. Thirty-eight percent of unaware users fall into the 18 to 34-age group, and
45 percent have had some college or technical school. [Read more]
RSS User Demographics, October 2005
Total Internet Users
RSS Usership
Aware RSS User
Unaware RSS User
Non-User
Gender (%)
Male
48
71
45
47
Female
52
29
55
53
Age (%)
18-34
37
50
38
36
35-49
32
29
34
32
50+
31
22
29
33
Education (%)
High school graduate or less
11
3
10
11
Some college/technical school
40
29
45
39
College graduate
28
36
27
27
Some post-graduate or post-graduate
degree
21
31
18
22
Household income ($)
Average household income
$62,655
$74,116
$59,748
$63,095
Source: Yahoo! and Ipsos Insight, 2005
Creating the feed isn't all that difficult, but it is an exercise in precision. The feed will not validate, for example, if the date isn't in the correct format.
Consonant with the nuances of XML to which you must attend, your feed must present content that interests your audience. This page addresses both issues.
Syndicate Your Headlines Using RSS By Shelley Lowery
RSS is quickly becoming the standard choice for delivering syndicated web content. Have you ever wondered how
some of the large content sites deliver their headlines? Or, have you ever wanted to display news headlines,
but didn't want to display the standard "Content Provided By..." info? Or, have you ever wanted to syndicate
your own content? RSS may be the answer you've been looking for.
RSS stands for Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication. It is an XML format specifically designed to
share content. Netscape originally developed RSS to drive channels for their Netscape Netcenter. Formerly known
as RDF, RSS was developed in 1999 and has quickly evolved into the dominant format for syndicating content.
Well-known sites such as, CNET, ZDNet, CNN, Wired and many more utilize this powerful means of dynamic content delivery.
Distributing your content using RSS will involve creating one file that contains your content. This file will reside
on your server to enable other web sites to display your channel. You can update your channel simply by updating your file.
Once you've created your file you can submit it to web sites like Netscape to enable other web sites to subscribe.
Creating an RSS File
Your first step will be to identify your file. To do this, place the following code at the top of your text file.
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE rss PUBLIC "-//Netscape Communications//DTD RSS 0.91//EN" "http://my.netscape.com/publish/formats/rss-0.91.dtd">
<rss version="0.91">
Your next step will be to create your channel header. The "channel" tag indicates that you are beginning a new channel.
<channel>
<title>Web-Source.net Syndication</title>
<link>http://www.web-source.net</link>
<description>Web Development article syndication feeds!</description>
<language>en-us</language>
The "title" tag indicates the name of your channel. The "link" tag will contain a link to your web site. The "description"
tag describes your channel and the "language" tag indicates that you're writing in US English.
In addition to displaying text, you can also display a small logo. The image should be 88 pixels wide and 31 pixels high.
Displaying an image is optional. If you're not going to include an image, skip this step.
Now, you're ready to create your headlines. Each new "item" tag represents a new topic. The rule of thumb is
to include between five and fifteen items. You can include a description, but it isn't required.
<item>
<title>Moving Up From Classified Ads to Display Ad</title>
<link>http://www.web-source.net/biz_tips_feed.htm</link>
<description>Display ads are the standard advertising tool of print media. You can impress your
carefully targeted audience with a colorful display ad that spreads across the page of your favorite magazine, trade bulletin, or
newspaper.</description>
</item>
<item>
<title>Creating A Customized Marquee</title>
<link>http://www.web-source.net/web_tips_feed.htm</link>
<description>Learn how to create a customized marquee for your web site</description>
</item>
Your final step will be to close your channel by adding the following tags:
</channel>
</rss>
Save your new file with a .rss file extension and upload it to your server.
If you'd rather not create your own RSS file, RSS Channel Editor is a free Web based tool that makes it easy to create
and maintain RSS files. You can find the script here: http://www.webreference.com/perl/tools/
Now, you're ready to share your content. Visit the following web sites to submit your new channel and enable other
web sites to display your content:
If you'd like to display RSS content on your web site, you'll need a script to fetch the content.
RSS Fetcher is a free script that will fetch content,
format it as HTML and store it in a file on your server. The content can then be displayed on your web site.
You can locate RSS files to display on your web site at the following web addresses:
For further information about RSS, read Jonathan Eisenzopf's tutorial entitled,
Using RSS News Feeds.
If you have content that you regularly update, give RSS a try. Providing free content is an extremely
powerful method of increasing your web site traffic.
RSS and News Feed Articles Collection of articles related to RSS, news feeds, marketing RSS, RSS aggregation and related RSS topics. rss-specifications.com
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