Members' Headlines: http://www.alabar.org/rss/rss.xml

Really Simple Syndication (or sometimes called "Rich Site Summary") has been around since the late 90s. However, with the increase in "blogging" and the great information race that the Internet has experienced in the past few years, RSS has finally hit the mainstream. RSS is being used by nearly all major media outlets, many information web sites and many blogs. Usually, an RSS "Feed" is noted by an orange or button.

In short, RSS uses a language called XML (Extensible Markup Language) similar to HTML, the language used to create information presented on the World Wide Web. RSS allows information that is presented on a web site to be condensed into headlines and brief articles and then transmitted to RSS readers, or "aggregators." Anyone can subscribe to a site's feed and they are typically a free service, just like the website itself. More recently, RSS feeds have even been used to distribute multimedia content like MP3 audio and video clips. For instance, a "podcast" is really just an MP3 or other audio file listed in an RSS feed.

We use RSS to distribute the news-style content that appears on pages like Members and Public. The headlines, links and abbreviated article content appearing on the page will be syndicated into an RSS feed so that our members and the general public can have faster access to new content on alabar.org. In the future, we may expand the RSS feeds on the site to include other dynamic information and multimedia.

Some technology experts have noted that the power behind syndicated content could fuel the future Internet. Others tend to think that syndication has already transformed the Internet and we are beginning to experience a more organized and information-friendly Internet due to the impact of RSS. Whatever the case, RSS is a very convenient way to view information. It allows us to view our favorite news outlet's headlines in seconds. We can scan sports scores quickly and view new articles from web journals that we read. RSS is rapidly becoming a very popular method for distributing content via the Internet and will certainly remain a big part of information technology in the years to come.

There are a few options to viewing RSS content.

1. Via a website: There are many websites that allow you to sign-up, gather feeds from a list of mainstream or popular sites if you wish, and receive customized content from feeds that you have found interesting and wish to read.
   • MyYahoo! is a very popular method for retrieving RSS feeds via the web. Yahoo FAQ.
   • Google has recently added a slick service for retrieving and organizing RSS. Google FAQ.
   • Bloglines is also a very popular web-based RSS service. Bloglines FAQ.
   • Other web-based news readers.


2. Via an RSS Reader: A very common method of retrieving RSS info is the use of standalone RSS Reader software. These types of programs run seperately from your web browser and often have a wide range of tools to use in the world of syndication. There's an extensive list of freeware Readers for Windows at Wikipedia. Don't worry, they have a list for Mac users too. Among these lists, Awasu for Windows and NetNewsWire for Mac are among the most popular. Also, the iTunes RSS Reader has rapidly gained popularity since release.


3. Via a web browser: There are a few plugins for web browsers like Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox that automatically recognize when a feed is available on a page you are viewing. Pluck for Internet Explorer and Sage for Firefox are two examples. Also, Firefox users will want to check into Live Bookmarks, an existing feature in Firefox.

For best results, refer to the documenation or FAQ provided with your RSS reader software. Each program, browser, plugin and website handle adding new feeds ("subscribing") differently.

However, one very popular method is copy/pasting "XML" links into the appropriate place. The way to handle this approach is to copy the RSS link (usually ends in .xml, .rss or .rdf) and paste it into your RSS reader. If you see an orange XML or RSS icon, you can right-click the icon (for Mac users, ctrl-click) and choose "Copy Shortcut" (IE) or "Copy Link Location" (FF). Again, refer to the documentation for your specific reader as to where to paste this information.

The RSS feeds for the Alabama State Bar are listed above. Simply copy and paste the links you wish to subscribe to into your RSS reader, as described in the last paragraph.

Yes and no. You have clicked on a link to an "XML" link in your web browser, but have either not installed software to render it or you have not visited that link using your RSS software. You are looking at RSS, but not the way it was intended to be viewed. Check your documentation on how to properly view the RSS content presented on the page you are viewing. RSS is not intended to be browsed to as though it were a web page. It is a different type of document. (Just like you use Powerpoint to view presentation slides and Excel to view spreadsheets.)

You might try using your favorite search engine to find more information on RSS technology. Here's a Google search for RSS. There are many, many articles and tutorials available to help you. If all else fails, we will help in any way possible, especially as it pertains to receiving the Alabama State Bar news feed. Just email the Web Administrator, .