What is RSS?

RSS is short for Really Simple Syndication. Sounds scary but it is a simply a cut down version of your main content.

The most common use for RSS is news articles, and what RSS is kind of like the good stuff without all the bells and whistle. If you visit your local news website, you will see all the nice styling and images that make it look good. Now if you look at the RSS in a browser or RSS client, then its just a cut down version, mostly text, audio or video only version of the main content.

For an example of the difference just open the following links in your browser

NotJustAJAX - the actual blog NotJustAJAX - the RSS Feed

As you will see from the above examples the RSS content is really just a cut down version of the main content.

Why is RSS referred to as a Feed?

The reason why RSS is known as RSS Feed is simply because it constantly feeds information into your RSS client once you have subscribed to a Feed.

What Can I Put in my RSS Feed?

Your RSS Feed can be of 3 main types text, audio and video.

For an example of an audio RSS Feed - Listen to our tips to sell your housepodcast

For an example of a text only RSS Feed - Subscribe to our Weekly Website Tips

For an example of a video RSS Feed - watch our How to Use Buzz Properties podcast

So Now What? How Do I Create My RSS Feed?

Most modern blogging clients such as Blogger, Word Press will do all the leg work for you, all you need to do is look at the bottom of the page of your blog and you will see the RSS Feed link.

Now what I would suggest is that you make use of the many services out there to, what is called burn your Feed {this just means create}, the one I use personally is FeedBurner. Then all you do is enter the details of your website or blog and FeedBurner does the rest for you.

With FeedBurner you can also track and monitor your RSS Feed, and if you want to turn your feed into a podcast and submit it to ITunes, it will let you do this as well.

For an example of an RSS Feeds turned into a podcasts listen to following in ITunes

this is an audio Podcast on our BuzzProperties.co.uk website- Tips to Sell Your House - The Podcast

this is a video Podcast of our BuzzProperties service - HowToUseBuzzProperites

NOTE - the above examples require ITunes installed on your machine

So Now You Have your RSS Feed. Now What?

You need to get the word out. The easiest way is to put your RSS Feed link on your website, and in your email signature.

You also want to submit your RSS Feed to RSS directories, our use ping.in to get the word out.

What are RSS Directories?

RSS Directories are simply directories listing lots of RSS Feeds and you can search for feeds in the directories by a variety of different ways. The largest RSS Feed directory is Apple ITunes Store.

Some other RSS directories are

RSS Network

Feed Plex

Complete RSS

For more RSS directories check out my blog NotJustAjax.blogspot.com which is updated as I find more directories. So If there are none listed when you visit check back later.

What Does a Feed Look like?

Ok if you must a raw RSS feed is an actual XML file, and looks like the following.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<rss version="2.0">
<channel>
<title>Potissimus Weekly Website Tips</title>
<description>Providing free weekly tips to get the most out of the web.</description>
<pubDate>Mon, 7 Apr 2008 0:00:01 GMT </pubDate>
<copyright>Copyright 2008, Potissimus Ltd</copyright>
<ttl>300</ttl>
<managingEditor>sean.connolly@potissimus.co.uk</managingEditor>
<webMaster>enqruiries@potissimus.co.uk</webMaster>
<image>
<url>http://www.potissimus.co.uk/images/top_banner.gif</url>
</image>
<item>
<title>Welcome to our weekly tips</title>
<description>First let us thank you for subscribing to our weekly tips, the aim of the tips is to help you get more from the web. Without spending a fortune.</description>
</item>
<item>
<title>Tip 7 - Use your friends and others</title>
<description>
<![CDATA[There is no better way to promote your website than word of mouth. Whether this is simply your friends telling each other about it, or by actually putting a recommend a friend link on your site, to allow people to recommend you website to their friends, its all good. And in marketing speak, this is known as viral marketing. ]]></description>
</item>
<item>
<title>Tip 8 - Use online promotion</title>
<description>
<![CDATA[Be sure to make proper use of online schemes, such as Google Adwords, or Yahoo Overture. There is one word of warning, well two really<br><br> 1 - <b>Set A Budget</b> - It is too easy to use these scheme and allow the costs to spiral. Make sure that you make use of the budgeting tools provided, to stop you paying more than you wish. <br><br> 2 - <b>Tailor you Campaign</b> - This may sound straight forward, but more too oftern people will not pick keywords that are targeted, for example use the word Ford cars sales rather than car sales, this will give you a better return on your investment (ROI) and help turn a click into a sales, without your money sailing away. ]]>
</description>
</item>
<item>
<title>Try our new DMS Service</title>
<description>
<![CDATA[We have just finished the redesign of our DMS service, www.file-manager.co.uk. We have also added some great new features<br><br> 1 - <b>Read Only Document Storage</b> - Now you can have a central document store for all your documents, and give anyone read only access. This may be legal disclosure documents, general company information, or any other document you wish to access from anywhere without people being able to make changes to it. <br><br> 2 - <b>Group and Single License</b> - You can now manage your own account, and create your own individual user areas without the need to pay for single user licenses for each user.<br><br> 3 - <b>Email document Sharing</b> - You can share your documents with anyone at the click of a button. <br><br>You can either<br><b>a</b> - send the actual document as an attachment directly from DMS <br><b>b</b> - Send a view only link to your document, to allow others to see the document simply by clicking a link in an email. <br><br>Try DMS now to see these great features in action. ]]>
</description>
<link>
http://www.file-manager.co.uk
</link>
</item>
<item>
<title>We are hiring</title>
<description>
<![CDATA[We are currently seeking marketing individuals to help promote our DMS service. There will be a basic salary plus up to a 25% commission. If you feel you have what we are looking for either send us your cv at hr@file-manager.co.uk or use our onsite contact form and we will get back to you. ]]>
</description>
<link>
http://www.file-manager.co.uk/contact.htm
</link>
</item>
</channel>
</rss>

This look scary but this is an exert from our News and as you can see the RSS feed only contains the basic information, so in the browser or your client it looks a lot better as teh orginal content. But RSS removes all the bells and whistles to allow your content to be easily syndicated.

This one is a stange thing that this internet world is made of, the question in simply how do you get people to take action on your website.

Potissimus.co.uk - The first issue is that I work as an internet consultant, mainly specialising in Web 2.0, AJAX and GIS (Google Maps, Map 24, ESRI, ARCGIS) and I have a lot of experience so I decided to ofer the world a free report on how they use their website and the internet in general. The problem is I have only ever had 1 taker of this. There is no hard sell, or obligations at all. But why don't people take me up on the offer.

BuzzProperties.co.uk - My other website is a property portal, just like an online estate egent, and this one lets people sell their house for free, no fees, no cost at all. Yet again I have not takers.

So my question is simple why is this?

Is it my website copy? Is it something else?

Can anyone out there shed some light on this, is there something I am missing? Please help!!

I have just setup an ebay affiliate account and noticed that Ebay now run their own Ebay Partner Network instead of using Commission Junction, I think this is a good idea because it means that hopefully affiliates get a better return.

The problem was that when I used the code from the Ebay Partnet Network website, it caused my Blogger blgo to crash. So I looked into the code and found the issue. Ebay provide code which in essence in too complex for the job in hand, they are doing all sorts of encoding strings to hide stuff, and it just doesn't work in Blogger.

The Solution

To correct this issue you just need to tweak the Ebay provided code I show you in depth in my Not Just AJAX blog what you need to do to make the new Ebay Partner Network code work in Blogger.

Ok this is a strange one I wanted to share with the world, how can I get comments from people visiting my blogs. I setup a few blogs with different interests of mine. I really want people to leave comments, share experiences and ask me stuff so I can help the world

The problem is I am getting people looking at my blogs, but no one is leaving any comments

So if you are reading this, visit my blogs and let me know what you think. If you have any technology questions please feel free to email them over, sean.connolly@potissimus.co.uk and I will help you with you techy problem on my blog Not Just AJAX

or if you use Google Checkout and Google technologies, visit my Google Checkout API and learn something or if you want me to help you with Google technologies leave a comment and I will help you out.

I also have a question do you believe in Ghosts? Do You have experiences to share. My Blog Ghosts - Real or Not lets people hear about my ghostly experiences, and I want people to share their experiences, so send them over and share them with the world.

So in closing I want the world to see my blogs and let me know what you think, so knock yourself out, and be honest. I can take it.

I think that google checkout is such as great alternative to the other solutions out there, namely Paypal. Google really has come up with a good solution for the small business in accepting payments online.

Sounds Good. So What the problem

The problem is that although google have put together a lot of information to get you up and running, their help info is a bit too long winded to help anyone. I thought I would address this issue, adn write my own help to aid people at getting started with Google Checkout

Take a look at my blog Google Checkout API in which I explain how to setup and use Google Checkout to process payments on your website

Let me know what you think, if you think anything does not make sense, let me know