How to publish an RSS feed

RSS ("Really Simple Syndication") is a great way to keep up on the topics you are most interested in. Feed scripts can be installed on a website so you can be alerted when a new entry is added to a blog, podcast, news site, or other place of frequently updated information. RSS aggregators organize the information from the feeds so you can read them.

What do you do with it, though? Where does it go? How do you use it?

Once you create a feed for your website or acquire a feed from a favorite site, you can publish it on a page of your choosing so you can access it more easily.

Facebook and other similar websites allow you to install a feed so you and your friends can see the latest entries. If you have an account with such a website, all you have to do is enter the feed address (with Facebook, you enter it in the Blog RSS Feed Reader application when asked... you just have to download the app to your profile first). This is similar to putting a feed on a Hub on HubPages; you create an RSS capsule and enter the feed address into the allotted space.

If you have your own webpage, there are a few ways to do this... some are more simple than others.

If you want to completely customize your RSS feed on your website and you have Adobe Dreamweaver, read these instructions: Feed Tools in Dreamweaver 8 and CS3: RSS and XSL. Once you try it a few times, you will get the hang of it.

If you want a simple code to cut and paste into the HTML of your webpage, go here: RSSinclude. Put the feed address into this tool and customize some basic features of the feed, such as the number of entries displayed and which parts of an entry to appear.

You can also use RSS publishing software such as FeedForAll or an online publishing system like FeedServer RSS Hosting to create and publish a feed.