RSS Feeds

RSS is short for RDF Site Summary or Rich Site Summary or even Real Simple Syndication (depending on whom you ask). The important thing to know is that RSS is an file (the RSS "feed") that reformats Web content for quick and easy distribution. This enables a subscriber to have updates “fed” into an aggregator as new information is published. For instance, if you subscribe to one of the City's RSS feeds, every time a new headline is published, it is also sent directly to your aggregator. Ok, lot’s of new words!

Current RSS feeds that the City provides:

City Connect Newsroom
WPB TV News
City Commission Meeting Audio
CityCast

What is an Aggregator?  Aggregators, also known as a feed reader, is client software or a Web service which gathers syndicated web content such as news headlines, blogs, etc. in a single location for easy viewing. Aggregators reduce the time and effort needed to regularly check websites for updates, creating a unique information space or "personal newspaper." Once subscribed to a feed, an aggregator is able to check for new content at user-determined intervals and retrieve the update.

There are a number of aggregators around. Aggregator features are frequently built into portal sites (such as My Yahoo! and iGoogle), modern web browsers and email programs.

For more information please review the following:

Feed Aggregators http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aggregator

More Feed aggregators http://dmoz.org/Computers/Software/Internet/Clients/WWW/Feed_Readers/Web_Based/

Here are some websites that have interesting info:

http://www.whatisrss.com/

http://www.cnn.com/services/rss/