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September 6 , 2005
RSS feed provides News@Emory

BY katherine Baust

ENews@Emory, a University web site operated by the Office of Media Relations, now offers a Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed for use in news readers and online news reading services. RSS is an XML-based format designed for sharing headlines and other web content. The feed includes the latest headlines, summaries and links back to News@Emory for the full article. The RSS feed is free, and News@Emory currently uses RSS 2.0.

“RSS is a great way for journalists and other audiences to receive the latest news from Emory online immediately and conveniently, without having to search the web site,” said Elaine Justice, associate director of media relations. “We can communicate everything from commentary on breaking news by leading faculty experts to the latest Emory research.”

For those new to RSS, the technology first caught on in the web log (blog) community and has become increasing popular with major news organizations since 2000. It saves time by sharing the latest news automatically with its subscribers; with RSS, users no longer need to spend time surfing favorite news sites. Rather, subscribers get regular updates from the news sources to which they subscribe and can even filter those results by keywords.

“With the deluge of information available online today,” Justice said, “RSS feeds are the perfect way to filter and streamline that flow.”

There are multiple ways to access RSS feeds. One way is to install a program known as a feed reader (or aggregator) that can check RSS-enabled webpages on behalf of a user and display any updated articles it finds. After installing the news reader, follow its instructions on “subscribing by URL.”

An alternative to downloading a dedicated news reader is to use a web-based news reader. Web-based readers and news aggregators require no software installation and make the user’s “feeds” available on any computer with web access. After signing into your Web-based news reader you may choose to add content by URL.

You may find the News@Emory RSS feed URL, http://news.emory.edu/emory_news_mainindex.xml,
on the homepage at www.news.emory.edu.

Anyone with questions or comments about News@Emory’s RSS feed can contact Media Relations Coordinator Jill Myers at 404-727-7020 or jill.myers@emory.edu.

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