RSS Feeds

An RSS Overview...

RSS is a family of Web feed formats, specified in XML and used for Web syndication. RSS is used by (among other things) news Web sites, Web logs, and podcasting.

Web feeds provide Web content or summaries of Web content together with links to the full versions of the content and other metadata. RSS in particular delivers this information as an XML file called an RSS feed, Web feed, RSS stream, or RSS channel. In addition to facilitating syndication, Web feeds allow a Web site's frequent readers to track updates on the site using an aggregator.

Our RSS 2.0 Web Feeds:

Articles*					Bloglines
Events Calendar *					Bloglines
Recent File Uploads					Bloglines
Word Of The Day					Bloglines
Abbreviation Of The Day					Bloglines
* The content of these feeds may be customized by changing the Category ID in the link.

What is RSS and Why Use It?

RSS Web feeds are widely used by the Web log community to share the latest entries' headlines or their full text and even attached multimedia files. (See podcasting, vodcasting, broadcasting, screencasting, Vloging, and MP3 blogs.) Since mid-2000, use of RSS has spread to many of the major news organizations, including Reuters, CNN, PR Newswire, Business Wire, and the BBC. These providers allow other Web sites to incorporate their "syndicated" headline or headline-and-short-summary feeds under various usage agreements. RSS is now used for many purposes, including marketing, bug-reports, or any other activity involving periodic updates or publications. Many corporations are turning to RSS for delivery of their news, replacing e-mail and fax distribution.

As the mainstream media attempts to realize the full potential of RSS, the new media is utilizing RSS by bypassing traditional news sources. Consumers and journalists are now able to have news constantly fed to them instead of searching for it.

A program known as a feed reader or aggregator can check a list of feeds on behalf of a user and display any updated articles that it finds. It is common to find Web feeds on major Web sites and many smaller ones. Some Web sites let people choose between RSS or Atom formatted Web feeds. Currently, we only offer RSS feeds.

RSS-aware programs are available for various operating systems. Client-side readers and aggregators are typically constructed as stand-alone programs or extensions to existing programs such as Web browsers. Browsers such as Opera browser and Mozilla Firefox are moving toward integrated feed reader functions. Also, sites such as Yahoo! allow you to create a customized page full of RSS feeds (My Yahoo).

Web -based feed readers and news aggregators , such as My Yahoo, require no software installation and make the user's "feeds" available on any computer with Web access. Some aggregators combine existing Web feeds into new feeds, e.g., taking all football-related items from several sports feeds and providing a new football feed. There are also search engines for content published via Web feeds like Feedster or Blogdigger.

On Web pages, Web feeds (RSS or Atom) are typically linked with the word "Subscribe", an orange rectangle, , or with the letters or .

How Do I Use RSS Feeds?

To start using RSS, you need a special news reader or aggregator that displays RSS content feeds from our site and others you select. There are many news readers available, most of which are free to download or use. You can install software right on your computer's desktop to get our headlines, click, and come right to the article on our site.

To subscribe to a particular RSS feed, click on the section title link above to obtain the RSS URL from the content area(s) you like, which you will see in the "address" field of of your browser. Simply copy that URL and follow the instructions for your particular news reader to get the feed easily. This site currently supports the RSS 2.0 standard only.

Terms of Using Our RSS Feeds

We encourage the use of our RSS feeds by anyone interested in EMS. We require proper format and attribution whenever our content is posted on your Web site. Sirius Innovations reserves the right to request that you cease using our content. For more information, contact Sirius Genealogy Support.

Excerpts Courtesy of "Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia"