Introducing the Connected Photographer RSS feeds

By now, you've probably noticed the little RSS icons that appeared all over Connected Photographer in the past week or so. A larger version of the icon is shown in Figure A.

RSS, which means Really Simple Syndication, is a format that is rapidly changing how people get timely information on the Internet. If you're like us, you need to visit and read many Web sites on a regular basis. This is pretty obvious, since you're reading Connected Photographer right now.

The problem is, how do you keep up? How do you get all the latest information from all the sites you might want to visit? RSS may well be the solution.

By "subscribing" to an RSS feed, like that from Connected Photographer, you're able to see when a site's got updated information, and you can read that updated information from one program, at one time.

Bits of history

To be fair, all of the ZATZ publications have had RSS feeds since 1998. In fact, when we first published our original RSS feeds, we were the first publishing company to do so across all publications. However, back in 1998, RSS feeds were very primitive, usually containing just headlines. The feeds were used primarily by Web site developers to include our headlines on their Web sites.

Technically, those feeds were in RSS 0.91 format. However, since 1998, RSS has grown up. Weblogs, RSS readers, aggregators, and an entire industry has adopted a more extensive version of RSS, known as RSS 2.0. This version, at a minimum, supports a lot more text, making it possible to really derive value reading "feeds" from within, well, RSS feed readers.

This week, we finished updating our sites to provide RSS 2.0 feeds. We also finished building an entire feed management infrastructure that will allow us to add a lot more feeds in places where they make the most sense. Our next bit of development will be to provide a feed for each author, so if there's a particular writer you always want to read, you can subscribe to his or her feed.

What's an RSS feed?

An RSS feed is, fundamentally, a text file located on a server that contains formatted information your RSS reader can understand. It's a very simple format, but it contains a lot of valuable information.

To you, as a reader of RSS feeds, an RSS feed is simply another URL. Rather than pasting it into the address bar of your browser, you paste it into the subscribe field of your feed reader.

This is Connected Photographer's main feed:

If you click on that URL, you'll get a pile of XML code displayed on your screen.

Now, let's get back to the little orange RSS icon you're seeing all through the magazine. That's the actual feed. If you right-click and copy the URL, you'll paste that into your feed reader. Strangely, many RSS feeds are most often indicated by an XML icon, which describes the format of the feed. You'll find feeds sometimes represented just by the word RSS and other times with icons including the RSS icon above, an XML icon, or other images. In all cases, though, you're going to want to grab the RSS URL and paste it into your newsreader.

RSS readers

There are literally hundreds of RSS-readers, also called newsreaders or news aggregators. Here's a short list of some you might want to try. Newsreading capabilities can be found in Web-based applications, like My Yahoo, as part of other applications, like Attensa in Outlook and Sage in Firefox, or as standalone desktop applications (like FeedDemon).

Standalone desktop newsreaders

Standalone newsreaders are full applications you launch from your desktop. Some standalone newsreaders are:

• <A HREF="http://www.bradsoft.com/feeddemon/index.asp">FeedDemon</A>: FeedDemon is $29.95 and was recently acquired by NewsGator Technologies, Inc. We've been very happy with FeedDemon in our own, personal use.
• <A HREF="http://radio.userland.com">Radio Userland</A>: Radio Userland was one of the first desktop aggregators and is special because it's also an excellent blog publishing tool. It's $39.95 per year.
• <A HREF="http://www.rssreader.com">RssReader</A>: RssReader is a free desktop newsreader. It works well, but we found we liked FeedDemon better.

Outlook-based newsreaders

If you want to read your news along with your email, you may want to look at an Outlook-based newsreader.

• <A HREF="http://www.attensa.com">Attensa for Outlook</A>: Developed by the folks at You Software, Attensa allows you to get at your feeds from within Outlook. Attensa is available for $20/year.
• <A HREF="http://www.newsgator.com">Newsgator</A>: Newsgator has been aggregating aggregators over the past few years, buying up a number of popular products. Offering programs ranging from $19.95 per year to $89.95 per year, they claim to give you your feeds any way you want them.

Web-based newsreading services

If you want to read your news from within a browser, you might want to look at a Web-based newsreading service. When you read news, you want to be able to mark what you've read. If you use a Web-based service, your status information is stored on the Web site, and you can pick up reading your feeds from any other machine with a Web browser.

• <A HREF="http://www.newsgator.com">Newsgator</A>: Newsgator also has a Web-based newsreader. Offering programs ranging from $19.95 per year to $89.95 per year, they claim to give you your feeds any way you want them.
• <A HREF="http://www.bloglines.com">Bloglines</A>: One of the most popular Web-based newsreaders is Bloglines. The service is free. They were recently acquired by Ask Jeeves, Inc.
• <A HREF="http://my.yahoo.com">My Yahoo!</A> The My Yahoo! service offers newsreading capabilities, but it's quite limited. While you can set My Yahoo up as your home page and see some of your favorite feeds, you're limited to seeing only feed headlines. But, hey, it's free!
• <A HREF="http://reader.google.com">Google Reader</A>: Google also offers a newsreader. Using a more dynamic page interface, if you're looking for a free service, you might like this reader. On the other hand, it's Google, so you can be sure they're making a list of your every move, gonna find out if you've been naughty or nice.

Browser-based newsreaders

Browser-based newsreaders are different from Web-based newsreaders in that you're reading the news within an extension of the browser's own interface, and your newsreading data is stored locally, not on a Web-based service. Browser-based newsreaders often have a more application-centric user interface, rather than one constructed mostly as a Web page.

Internet Explorer 6 does not yet have native RSS-reading capabilities, but IE7 is expected to add these capabilities. In the meantime, you can download plug-ins that'll do the job for you.

• <A HREF="http://www.mozilla.com/firefox</A>Firefox</A>: Firefox has some native RSS reading capabilities built right in. The program's Live Bookmarks update dynamically based on your RSS feeds. And Firefox is pretty cool.
• <A HREF="http://www.pluck.com/products/rss-reader.html">Pluck</A>: The Pluck RSS Reader embeds itself into either Internet Explorer or Firefox. It's free.
• <A HREF="http://www.wizzcomputers.com/WizzRss.php">Wizz RSS News Reader</A>:This is a free Firefox extension. What can we say? We love the name.
• <A HREF="http://www.andyfrank.com/projects/fizzle.php">Fizzle</A>: Another free extension for Firefox. It's still in the early stages of development. More than anything, we recommend you visit the developer's home page at <A HREF="http://www.andyfrank.com">AndyFrank.com</A>. Now, here's a dude secure in his masculinity!
• <A HREF="http://sage.mozdev.org">Sage</A>: Yet another free extension for Firefox, this one has some promise.

Lotus Notes-based newsreaders

We were honestly surprised we didn't see newsreading capabilities native within Notes 7, although we're hearing we'll see more in next year's release. That said, here are a few Notes-based readers:

• <A HREF="http://www.madicon.de/content/category/4/71/52/">Madicon Reader</A>: Written by a German dude, he's very clear that this product has an English-language manual and menus.
• <A HREF="http://www.pavone.com/newsreader_en">PAVONE NewsReader</A>: This is a nicely featured newsreader you can access from within your Notes client.

Macintosh-based newsreaders

By far, the most well-known and best respected newsreader for the Mac is NetNewsWire, which was recently acquired by Newsgator. Apple's Safari browser also has limited newsreading capabilities, but has (for reasons known only to Apple), changed the little orange XML/RSS indicators to blue. That's Apple for ya!

• <A HREF="http://ranchero.com/netnewswire">NetNewsWire</A>: Built by Brent Simmons, this is reputed to be the best choice if you use a Mac. Brent's a heck of a programmer, so we don't doubt it. It's available for $24.95.
• <A HREF="http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/safari">Safari</A>: Safari is Apple's browser, and it has it's own slightly Apple-funky RSS reader. But hey, if you're a Mac user and you paid to upgrade to Mac OS X Tiger, it's free. Our Mac experts tell us you'll most likely want to buy NetNewsWire anyway.

Over the next few months, we'll be covering RSS in detail. We'll be offering reviews of RSS readers, covering some of the technology behind RSS, and integrating it more completely into all the ZATZ offerings.

Go forth and read feeds!