RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is an easy way to keep up with your favorite news and information. An RSS feed contains headlines, summaries and links to full news stories on our web site. If you click an RSS link, you will see XML (eXtensible Markup Language) code in your browser. This is to be expected, since you do not view RSS content through a browser. You view the headlines through an RSS news reader (also called an RSS aggregator).
RSS allows you to see when sites from all over the internet have added new content. You can get the latest headlines and articles in one place, as soon as they are published, without having to remember to visit each site every day.
In general, the first thing you need is something called a news reader. This is a piece of software that checks RSS feeds and lets you read any new articles that have been added to them. There are many different versions, some of which are accessed using a browser, and some of which are downloadable applications. Browser-based news readers let you catch up with your RSS feed subscriptions from any computer, whereas downloadable applications let you store them on your main computer, in the same way that you either download your e-mail using Outlook, or keep it on a web-based service like Hotmail.
Once you have chosen a news reader, all you have to do is decide what content you want to receive in your news reader by finding and subscribing to the relevant RSS feeds.
For example, if you would like the latest Buncombe County News, simply visit our homepage and you will notice an orange RSS button on the left hand side.
If you click on the button you can subscribe to the feed in various ways, including:
- dragging the URL of the RSS feed into your news reader
- cutting and pasting the same URL into a new feed in your news reader
There is a range of different news readers available and new versions are appearing all the time.
Different news readers work on different operating systems, so you will need to choose one that will work with your computer.
Here is an extensive list of News Readers.