 What are News Feeds?
News feeds allow you to see when websites have added new content. You can get the latest headlines and video in one place, as soon as its published, without having to visit the websites you have taken the feed from.
The main standard is RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and by 'subscribing' to a particular feed, that site will automatically update your news reader when new pages are published.
In the case of investsoutheastengland.co.uk, we will be adding approximately 30 news articles per month to our newsfeed service.
How do I start using feeds?
In general, the first thing you need is something called a 'news reader'. This is a programme that checks the feeds and displays these on your computer, PDA or mobile phone (depending on where check your newsfeeds from!).
There are many different versions, some of which are accessed using a browser or e-mail software, and some of which are separate downloadable applications.
Browser-based news readers let you read your RSS feed subscriptions from any computer, whereas other applications let you store them on your main computer. This is similar to e-mail using Outlook (which downloads your mail) or a web-based service like Hotmail (which views the information online). Indeed, Microsoft Outlook itself now includes the facility for subscribing to and downloading RSS feeds.
How do I get a news reader?
There are literally hundreds 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; the chances are though that you already have the software installed! Check your browser and e-mail programmes to see if they already 'support' RSS feeds. If not, try visiting some of our 'RSS Resource Links' below.
Subscribing to our newsfeed
Once you have chosen a news reader, all you have to do is to decide what content you want it to receive. To do that, you need to 'subscribe' to a newsfeed. This can be done on millions of websites and is usually denoted by the RSS icon.
If you click on the RSS button you can subscribe to the feed in various ways, including by dragging the URL of the feed into your news reader or by cutting and pasting the same URL into a new feed in your news reader. Most sites that offer feeds use a similar orange button, but some may just have a normal web link.
Some browsers, including Firefox, Opera and Safari, automatically check for feeds for you when you visit a website, and display an icon when they find one. This can make subscribing to feeds much easier.
RSS Resource Links
You can find out more about 'News Readers' and RSS Feeds on the following websites:
The content of linked sites is not the responsibility of SEEDA.
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