WEBVTT - How RSS Works 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:02.960 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. 0:00:03.200 --> 0:00:08.760 It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with 0:00:08.920 --> 0:00:12.879 tech Stuff from how stuff Works dot Com. Join Josh 0:00:12.880 --> 0:00:15.280 and Chuck, the guys who bring you stuff you should know, 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:17.680 as they take a trip around the world to help 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:20.720 you get smarter in a topsy turv economy. Check out 0:00:20.760 --> 0:00:23.439 the all new super Stuff Guide to the Economy from 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:27.240 how stuff Works dot Com, available now exclusively on iTunes. 0:00:27.640 --> 0:00:33.479 Hello everybody, and welcome to tech Stuff. My name is 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:35.920 Chris Poulette. I'm an editor here at how stuff Works 0:00:35.920 --> 0:00:38.559 dot com and sitting next to me as usual to 0:00:38.720 --> 0:00:43.880 join the discussion as senior writer Jonathan Strickland. Good eye, Yeah, okay, 0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:47.680 what's that all about? Well, today I thought we would 0:00:47.720 --> 0:00:51.120 take our discussion from a topic that was sent in 0:00:51.240 --> 0:00:54.120 from a listener, So let me quickly read this suggestion. 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:58.240 Hi guys, my name is Nick. I am from Australia 0:00:58.560 --> 0:01:01.360 and I love the podcast. I got it. Yeah, I 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:04.000 was searching the web recently when I stumbled over something 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:06.880 which has been annoying me for a while. Now. What 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:11.920 is an RSS feed and how do they work? Thanks? Well, Nick, 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:16.240 I figure that's what we're gonna tackle is, um, RSS feeds. Yeah, 0:01:16.360 --> 0:01:19.040 and uh, and chances are you are listening to this 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:22.640 podcast thanks in no small part to at least some 0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:26.119 sort of variation of the RSS feed. That's true. That's true. 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:29.280 And wait a minute, you know you mean of all 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:31.040 the articles on the site that I've written, which is 0:01:31.080 --> 0:01:33.720 what four or five? Now you picked one that I 0:01:33.760 --> 0:01:37.000 actually wrote. Yeah, yeah, out of all the thousands and 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:39.280 thousands of articles on how Stuff Works, I decided to 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:43.039 go with one that Pallette himself uh penned or typed. 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:45.440 I guess you didn't really pen it. But um, yeah, 0:01:45.480 --> 0:01:46.880 if you go to how Stuff Works and you search 0:01:46.959 --> 0:01:50.440 for RSS, you'll see that our own Chris Pallette wrote 0:01:50.440 --> 0:01:52.600 the article on it, so I figure he's an expert. 0:01:53.000 --> 0:01:56.360 It's a trap. Anyway, Let's let's go ahead and kind 0:01:56.360 --> 0:01:59.120 of give you a sort of a quick introduction to 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:04.640 r SS. Uh. It all goes back to nine. Wow, 0:02:04.680 --> 0:02:09.280 I remember it well when we're teaching the world to laugh, remember, well, Yeah, 0:02:09.320 --> 0:02:13.160 it was a very good year. So, um, RSS stands 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:14.919 for a couple of things, depending on who you ask, 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:21.040 the the most common uh form of our or the 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:23.480 most common what would you say, like, the most common 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:29.120 name for RSS is really simple syndication. Um, that's that's 0:02:29.120 --> 0:02:32.200 how most people just translate the RSS. But that's not 0:02:32.280 --> 0:02:38.240 necessarily the only way to break out that acronym. That's true. Um, Actually, 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:41.440 it had had a different name assigned to it by 0:02:41.520 --> 0:02:44.120 the person who basically put it together. His name is 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:47.920 Dave Winer, and if you're a tech nut then you 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:50.080 probably recognize his name. He's had a lot to do 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:53.640 with the blogging over the years. And um, he actually 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:58.519 had a hand in creating rs S, the RSS technology. Um, 0:02:58.600 --> 0:03:01.280 and it had another name. But it's funny because I 0:03:01.320 --> 0:03:03.679 think everybody thought that RSS was supposed to stand for 0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:07.280 really simple syndication, because it really is simple to syndicate 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:10.480 using these feeds. Yeah, you might have heard of it 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:16.160 also as r DF site summary or rich Site summary. Yeah. Yeah, 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:21.160 and uh, those names not exactly the coolest names. Yeah, 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:24.160 it's and yeah, it gets a little more difficult to 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:26.920 explain what r S S is when you think of 0:03:26.919 --> 0:03:29.880 it that way. When you think really simple syndication, you 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:32.400 already have kind of an idea of what RSS is 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:36.560 supposed to do. It's supposed to syndicate information across the web. 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:39.280 And what does that mean. Well, it means that instead 0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:42.600 of you having to go to multiple destinations on the 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:46.200 web to look up information, you know, information that changes 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:50.440 over time, you would have the this subscription service where 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:54.680 you would subscribe to a feed of information and that 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:58.120 would serve it to you in some form, like whether 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:01.040 it's a website, like a portal web site like eye, Google, 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:06.920 or a desktop RSS reader anything like that, so you 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:10.680 can get information from multiple sources packaged in a single 0:04:10.800 --> 0:04:15.440 view that way. That's true. Um, And uh, just as 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:18.520 a quick thing about the name, apparently Mr Weiner thought 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:20.880 it was a really cool name too, because he adopted 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:23.440 it in the last specification that he released for rs s, 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:27.640 which is RSS two point oh. Um. But uh, it's 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:30.880 it's funny because the really simple part is very very 0:04:30.960 --> 0:04:33.760 apt because there's really not a whole lot to it. 0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:37.440 RSS feeds are essentially a different form of web page 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:41.560 rather than being an HTML, which is hypertext markup language UM, 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:45.560 which is basically how a web page tells your browser 0:04:45.640 --> 0:04:48.880 to format it with the different fonts, the different size fonts, 0:04:49.080 --> 0:04:52.800 bold italic, underline, you know, all those little things pictures 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:55.080 that kind of Yeah, exactly where to put the photos 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:57.560 whether or not to invent a chunk of flash. I mean, 0:04:57.560 --> 0:04:59.760 that's essentially what an h TAMIL page does. And if 0:04:59.800 --> 0:05:01.880 you were to go up to your browser and view 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:06.280 the source of the document, you would see that basically, 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:08.800 all the text in the document itself, unless it's part 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:11.839 of a picture, is you know, just surrounded by a 0:05:11.839 --> 0:05:15.480 couple of tags. So it's it's you know, it may 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:18.000 not necessarily be programming, but it is, you know, one 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:20.280 of the closest things. It's sort of that in between 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:22.560 phase where you're actually doing stuff to text to make 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:24.440 it work differently in a computer, but you're not actually 0:05:25.000 --> 0:05:29.160 programming a lot of it. UM the thing is uh 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:33.360 RSS and it's cousin ADAM basically use a cousin of 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:37.279 the UH The HTML specification called XML, which stands for 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:41.720 Extensible Markup Language UM and the thing. The difference in 0:05:41.839 --> 0:05:45.200 the two is essentially, I mean, they are very closely related, 0:05:45.320 --> 0:05:49.760 but XML lets you create your own tags. Like for example, 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:52.720 if you had bold or B for bold um in 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:56.400 HTML and you wanted to make it do something completely different, well, 0:05:56.520 --> 0:06:00.400 you're kind of stuck because the HTML specification is very limited. XML, 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:02.120 on the other hand, as long as you tell it 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:04.440 what each thing means. You could say, you can have 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:07.120 something with lots of names and addresses in it, and 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:11.400 you can create an address tag and based on the 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:13.240 difference is you have to tell it what the address 0:06:13.320 --> 0:06:16.760 tag means, you say, oh, well always bold anything in 0:06:16.760 --> 0:06:18.960 the address tag. Okay, well, now I know what that means. 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:21.160 I can display it that way. Right. So XML is 0:06:21.200 --> 0:06:24.120 just a really flexible form of HTML. Yeah, it's it's 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:28.680 really um, it's it's difficult to explain in a way 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:32.400 that uh, that's you know, very succinct. But but the 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:34.159 other thing you can think of as XML allows you 0:06:34.200 --> 0:06:38.919 to define, uh, the contents of a text file in 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:42.120 different ways. Now, when when you're using a web browser 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:47.080 to search for information your computer, like let's say you're searching, 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:50.760 you're actually using a search engine like Google. Um, Google 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:54.680 doesn't necessarily know what it is you're searching for. It's 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:59.720 looking for certain keywords um in my depending on the algorithm, 0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:01.920 look at the history of search as you've done, so 0:07:01.960 --> 0:07:04.560 that it can get an idea of oh, when this 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:10.280 person types in UM, the letters in I C E. Uh, 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:14.760 this person is actually looking for nice France, not nice, right, 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:18.440 like but otherwise otherwise the computer doesn't know that. The 0:07:18.440 --> 0:07:23.120 computer can't tell it, it can't understand context. Um. XML 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:26.200 is one of those ways where you can you can 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:29.360 create meta data, which is this this sort of attempt 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:34.360 to kind of teach computers context, but it's all still 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:40.000 human defined. Essentially, metadata is data about data, right, So 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:43.080 it's all the characteristics of the information that you're putting 0:07:43.160 --> 0:07:45.640 in that text file. So if you create a reader 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:49.160 that can read certain kinds of tags that you've defined 0:07:49.200 --> 0:07:52.360 in x mL, so so both the content wherever you're 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:56.200 putting it up and the reader itself use these same definitions. 0:07:56.240 --> 0:07:59.880 That's what allows you to access that particular kind of information. 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:02.920 So with RSS, that's what we're talking about. They both 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:05.760 that both the reader and the information that you've tagged 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:08.840 have this particular kind of x m L in it 0:08:09.280 --> 0:08:11.640 um if the nice thing is there are a lot 0:08:11.680 --> 0:08:16.680 of different UH web services out there that automate RSS 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:18.600 if you want to use it, Like there are a 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:20.880 lot of blogging systems that use some form of r 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:24.840 SS automatically so that someone can subscribe to your blog 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:28.360 and every time you update it when that person logs 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:31.679 in there there RSS reader will look for the most 0:08:31.800 --> 0:08:37.360 recent information from your your blog. Now, Um, putting it 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:41.360 in like the RSS information into a website that doesn't 0:08:41.400 --> 0:08:44.800 have it automated is a little more complicated. Well, it's 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:49.000 a little bit more complicated, but basically an EXCEL document 0:08:49.280 --> 0:08:52.720 essentially has to have something somewhere else that the computer 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:55.319 can look to to find out what all these little 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:57.719 funny tags mean. I mean that the brow the web 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:00.079 browser is going to know that stuff in between the 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:04.640 greater than a less stand sign. Um, Basically that's a tag. 0:09:04.640 --> 0:09:07.320 But if if they're not HTML tags, it's gonna say, well, 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:09.040 I don't know what this is unless you tell me 0:09:09.080 --> 0:09:12.800 where to go to get the information about this. So um, 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:15.960 that's that's the point of RSS or ADAM is that 0:09:16.320 --> 0:09:21.000 these are definitions. Um. Otherwise the page that your RSS 0:09:21.040 --> 0:09:23.880 feed is based on is just an XML document with 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:27.600 no that doesn't explain how to interpret that information and 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:30.559 there's no context. So yeah, I mean it's it's it's 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:32.240 a little simpler than it would be if you were 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:35.040 putting in another XML because otherwise you'd have to define 0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:37.520 all those elements yourself. You could do it if you 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:39.960 really want to, but then you have to tell every 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:43.400 time you create a web page with the essentially the 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:45.959 RSS information, and you'd have to say, well, you have 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:48.000 you know, when you open this page, look for this 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:50.320 document on this server and it will be there. You 0:09:50.400 --> 0:09:53.679 really need to have a good familiarity with HTML and 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:57.960 probably I would say JavaScript too before you really tackled it. 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:00.599 And UM, I'm sorry, no, no, ahead, I was just 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:03.040 gonna say that. Um. So, the nice thing is that 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:07.600 RSS and and ADAM are accepted specifications, so you know, 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:11.880 they're very common if you use Blogger or WordPress or 0:10:11.960 --> 0:10:14.760 you know a lot of other different tools. Basically, when 0:10:14.760 --> 0:10:17.240 you create a blog, it'll probably it'll ask you if 0:10:17.320 --> 0:10:19.840 you want in RSS feed, and if you do, it 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:22.959 will go ahead and create that document along with all 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:25.160 the other documents in your blog, so you really don't 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:27.360 have to mess with it. And then you just you know, 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:29.840 people who come to visit your blog, Um, see, if 0:10:29.880 --> 0:10:32.920 you were visiting the tech Stuff blog could click on 0:10:32.960 --> 0:10:35.000 the RSS logo and subscribe to it if you were 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:37.280 the user. And the same thing is true for things 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:40.840 like podcasts. Like we said, um, you can find our podcast, 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:43.600 for example, on iTunes, which has its own sort of 0:10:44.160 --> 0:10:46.880 uh way of checking up for the latest information to 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:49.959 make sure that you have the latest editions of whatever 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:54.720 podcasts you've subscribed to. But there are other uh, podcast 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:57.400 hosting sites out there that you can you can go 0:10:57.440 --> 0:11:00.559 to and just subscribe via RSS and not have to 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:03.240 go through iTunes if you don't want to. That's true. 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:08.120 It's it's just a it's basically just an XML file saying, UM, 0:11:08.160 --> 0:11:10.640 you know, this will be updated every so often. Please 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:13.320 check back. This is where the files will be found 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:16.680 and um every time you're Uh. This is the neat 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:20.800 part because the specification is so widespread. If you're using Maya, 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:25.200 Who or Eye, Google or you know news Gator, or 0:11:25.240 --> 0:11:29.280 you know, even the software browsers, Um, you know the 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:32.200 a lot of the web browsers now have they built in. 0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:34.280 Some of the mail programs haven't built in now. I 0:11:34.320 --> 0:11:36.360 mean you, RSS is so ubiquitous now that you can 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:39.080 read RSS feeds and just about anything. You just have 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:40.839 to know the U r L of the r s 0:11:41.120 --> 0:11:44.360 S document, the XL document for the RSS feed, tell 0:11:44.400 --> 0:11:48.520 it where to look, and uh, basically you're off and running. Yeah, 0:11:48.520 --> 0:11:50.840 And there's there are a lot of portal sites out 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:54.000 there that, um that make this even easier. Like I 0:11:54.040 --> 0:11:57.280 mentioned I Google before, if you have a Google account, 0:11:57.480 --> 0:11:59.240 then you pretty much can you know, just go ahead 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:01.280 and start creating or eye Google page. If you don't 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:03.480 have a Google account, well they're free, so you can 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:05.160 go ahead and make one. You know, they're gonna rule 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:06.640 us all at one day anyway, so you might as 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:09.439 well go ahead and get on the train now. Um, 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:13.400 but I Google you you can create a little windows 0:12:13.440 --> 0:12:19.440 that hold essentially RSS newsreaders for or or well RSS 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:22.160 feed readers I guess you could say, for pretty much 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:24.079 anything you can think of, and that has a very 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:26.760 easy search tool you can use to search for specific 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:31.240 UM feeds if you want, uh. And you can even 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:34.000 organize it by category, so you could have an entire 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:37.360 page just dedicated to entertainment. You could have one dedicated 0:12:37.400 --> 0:12:42.080 to technology. I am currently explaining my own eye Google page. 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:45.199 Well you can, um, I mean that That's the thing 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:48.920 is the readers like that and and net vibes and 0:12:49.000 --> 0:12:52.559 page flakes. Basically they break each individual read into its 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:55.360 own box and so you might see five or six, 0:12:56.000 --> 0:13:00.440 five or ten uh current news stories in there. UM 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:03.600 Google Reader is a different version where you can incorporate 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:06.240 all your feeds into one big long list and it 0:13:06.320 --> 0:13:08.080 can go on forever and ever and ever. Or you 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:10.439 can organize them into folders and read just the ones 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:13.240 in the folder, or read feed by feed right, which 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:16.560 for me would be overwhelming. Uh, it's a lot. It 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:19.800 can be a lot. If you have, you know, and 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:22.120 you started to a lot of feeds, it's gonna fill up. 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:24.240 I mean, even if you're checking multiple times a day. 0:13:24.280 --> 0:13:26.120 You got to remember, all of these web pages are 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:30.000 updating pretty frequently. Actually, that's that's the reason why RSS 0:13:30.120 --> 0:13:33.360 is really so valuable today. Now, back when I started 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:34.920 using the web, and I'm sure it's the same for 0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:39.440 Poulette here. Um, websites didn't change that often because it 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:43.240 was a pain in the butt to change a web page. Um. 0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:46.679 So web page is really served as sort of a static, 0:13:47.679 --> 0:13:50.679 you know, information page, if you will. It was something 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:52.720 that was meant to give you some information, but it 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:57.200 wasn't necessarily going to update very often. So um, and 0:13:57.240 --> 0:13:59.520 then there's this big thing called push that was supposed 0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:01.720 to change ja all that, and it kind of didn't. 0:14:01.920 --> 0:14:04.280 But then basically what it was gonna do was start 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:08.480 web pages, We're gonna start pushing information out to your computer, um, 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:09.800 and you hear it every once in a while. It 0:14:09.880 --> 0:14:12.280 sort of resurrects every once in a while and people say, oh, well, 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:16.720 this is really going to be pushed, and everyone goes, yeah, yeah. 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:18.920 But RSS is kind of like push even though it's 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:22.080 it's pull. Your computer is pulling information for all these feeds. 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:26.480 But uh, the websites are updating regularly. So if your 0:14:26.520 --> 0:14:28.600 computer says, you know, go to ce NN dot com 0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:31.040 and check the RSS feed, Oh, there's four new stories. 0:14:31.080 --> 0:14:34.120 Let's pull them down, and it pulls down just a 0:14:34.160 --> 0:14:36.120 little bit of the story, usually as much as the 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:38.560 RS And this is the part of the XML. It says, 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:41.400 you know, pull down this much of the headline and 0:14:41.560 --> 0:14:44.920 half a paragraph of copy, and just that that way 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:48.000 you are. You have the incentive to click on a 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:51.520 link to go to the the actual page that has 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:54.800 that information on it, because you could imagine if you 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:59.360 allowed an entire page of text to come through a reader, 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:04.040 there'd be no reason to visit that that host page. Well, 0:15:04.080 --> 0:15:06.480 you know, if you don't visit that host page, then 0:15:06.880 --> 0:15:09.080 the hosts right exactly, the host is not going to 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:11.960 get any eyes on any of the advertisements that they 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:14.960 use in order to fund the web page. And it is, 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:17.240 after all, how they're making money off of you coming 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:19.440 to their website. Right, So, if you were using an 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:22.720 RSS reader to read everything, and you didn't ever have 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:26.600 to visit anyone ever again, then pretty soon those sites 0:15:26.640 --> 0:15:29.160 wouldn't have any revenue streams coming in, and then you 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:33.680 wouldn't have anyone to read anyway, because they'd all be gone. Yeah. Yeah, 0:15:33.920 --> 0:15:36.520 well that's uh, that's one of the advantages of forking 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:38.960 over a few dollars for an RSS reader or finding 0:15:39.000 --> 0:15:43.400 a free one. Um, do you ever use any software RSS? 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:46.200 I just have. I just use Eye Google. It's just 0:15:46.280 --> 0:15:48.080 my that's my go to I use. I use a 0:15:48.120 --> 0:15:51.760 combination of I, Google and Twitter to stay up to 0:15:51.880 --> 0:15:54.440 date on everything. All right, Well, I've I've used lots 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:56.560 and lots and lots of different readers, most of them 0:15:56.560 --> 0:16:00.600 for the Macintosh. But uh, NewsGator actually used to be 0:16:00.640 --> 0:16:03.920 a different sort of company, but they sort of specialized 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:08.440 now into RSS feeds and acquired two of the very 0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:11.120 very best and made them free. Actually both of them 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:14.480 are shareware and and NewsGator has made them free. One 0:16:14.520 --> 0:16:16.960 of them is feed Demon that's for Windows and you 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:20.680 can actually sink to your your account, your NewsGator account 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:22.840 with both of these. So if you have a Windows 0:16:23.000 --> 0:16:25.400 computer on your desktop at work and then use a 0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:28.480 Mac at home, you might use net Newswire for the Mac, 0:16:28.520 --> 0:16:30.600 which is an awesome feed readers, my favorite of all 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:32.880 of them. Uh, and there are lots of really neat 0:16:32.920 --> 0:16:36.400 ones UM and it will sink up the changes so 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:38.840 that you don't have to worry about going I've read that, 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:40.720 I've read that. Man, I've read all these. Well, you 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:43.000 know what's going on. This is pointless. You don't have 0:16:43.040 --> 0:16:45.520 to worry about that with those with that sink and 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:48.880 um you know they're they're tons and tons of others. 0:16:49.200 --> 0:16:53.040 UM news Owl is one that's free and uh, you know, 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:55.680 you can even get Thunderbird Mozilla Thunderbird to read your 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:59.760 RSS feeds and that's good on Mac Windows Analytics. And 0:16:59.800 --> 0:17:02.440 we should point out that not everyone is super happy 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:05.320 with r s s UM. I can think of one 0:17:05.440 --> 0:17:09.080 organization in particular that's been getting although although the ire 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:12.359 of this particular organization has been directed not at r 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:17.000 S S in particular, more towards just the web in general. 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:23.200 That'd be the Associated Press a P so ap. The 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:26.560 Their beef is that, UM, you know a lot of 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:30.600 people are citing AP reports for their UH in their 0:17:30.640 --> 0:17:34.159 own news articles. So you're seeing this pop up in 0:17:34.400 --> 0:17:38.439 on news sites and especially on blogs. And the problem 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:42.320 is that if you're using this information, um and and 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:45.040 there's no real incentive for the reader to go back 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:49.120 to the original report, AP feels like it's doing all 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:53.760 the legwork and getting none of the eyeballs. So UH, 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:57.320 there's there's this big issue now, um AP says, I 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:00.560 think it's something like, gosh, I can't remember more than 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:04.520 maybe five sentences or something is UH is too much, 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:08.560 you can't quote more than that. UM, I'm probably have 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:10.639 that wrong. If I do, go ahead and write me, 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:13.840 write me a nice little letter. UM. But because I 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:15.520 didn't write this down for my notes, I just happened 0:18:15.520 --> 0:18:18.520 to have heard it off off hand. But their their 0:18:18.520 --> 0:18:22.040 point is that they don't want people using their content 0:18:22.560 --> 0:18:25.200 to get eyes when they could be getting those eyes. 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:27.920 So now, one of the interesting things is both AP 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:29.959 and the Wall Street Journal have had these kind of 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:34.520 issues recently. UM and they they sort of are in 0:18:34.600 --> 0:18:39.080 some ways indirectly attacking UH search engines like Google, because 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:41.080 I'm sure if any of you have done a Google search, 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:43.320 and I don't know that anyone out there listening to 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:46.560 this has never done one. If you haven't, here's what 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:50.680 you can expect. You search for something on Google, you're 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:53.480 gonna get linked names, and then you'll get a small 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:58.000 excerpt from the website underneath the link explaining it. So 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:00.639 in the case of an ap are nicle or perhaps 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:03.439 even a Wall Street Journal article, you might get the 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:07.359 the headline of the article, plus some of the body 0:19:07.400 --> 0:19:12.440 of the text. Um. Some people say that that's too much. 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:14.280 And you know that even that is too much, like 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:16.199 you're giving away too much. People are just reading the 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:18.240 summary and there's no need for them to go to 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:22.320 the website to read more. Um. I think it would 0:19:22.359 --> 0:19:30.320 be a monumentally bad decision two demand that information be removed, 0:19:30.400 --> 0:19:34.199 because can you imagine how much traffic would plummet if 0:19:34.200 --> 0:19:37.639 Google said, you know what, fine, We're removing all of 0:19:37.720 --> 0:19:41.359 your links from our search results. No longer will we 0:19:41.440 --> 0:19:45.880 ever link to any ap content whatsoever, will only link 0:19:45.960 --> 0:19:49.200 to other websites that have that that relate to whatever 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:54.160 search result that is. Can you imagine how traffic would dip? Well? 0:19:54.680 --> 0:19:57.720 And it might, but well, look at look at this. 0:19:57.760 --> 0:20:00.800 Though the AP makes their money, it makes it's money. Sorry, 0:20:00.920 --> 0:20:03.440 I am an editor. The AP makes its money from 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:08.439 newspapers that subscribe to its services. And if we are 0:20:08.480 --> 0:20:11.480 all running around, if if one newspaper, I mean you know, 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:14.119 there are tons and tons of newspapers that are are going, 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:17.399 um bankrupt, and some of them are going out of business, 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:20.720 some of them are going web only. Um, if it 0:20:20.840 --> 0:20:23.359 ends up where say the Sacramento B is the last 0:20:23.359 --> 0:20:28.880 one standing and everybody's ripping off the AP headlines, then um, 0:20:28.960 --> 0:20:31.680 you know they nobody's everybody will stop going to the 0:20:31.960 --> 0:20:35.160 Sacramento B. Their advertisers are going to bolt and they're 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:37.080 gonna go under two, and so will the AP. So 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:39.760 they're they're defending their you know. My argument there then 0:20:40.000 --> 0:20:43.919 is why let that why let the AP articles remain 0:20:44.440 --> 0:20:48.720 publicly available? Why not password protect them or subscribe or 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:51.320 protect them, because if you're if they're freely available on 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:56.560 the web through some website, then you know pretty much 0:20:56.760 --> 0:20:59.239 everyone's gonna grab it anyway. Yeah, that's that's true, and 0:20:59.560 --> 0:21:02.800 I think is probably why you see UH articles on 0:21:02.840 --> 0:21:05.000 some websites where you can only read part of the 0:21:05.040 --> 0:21:08.399 first paragraph and UH In fact, I saw an article 0:21:08.480 --> 0:21:11.199 just the other day in which Wall Street Times owner 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:14.479 Rupert Murdoch is saying that all newspapers should make their 0:21:14.520 --> 0:21:20.240 websites for pay only. I'm sort of paraphrasing and oversimplifying, 0:21:20.280 --> 0:21:21.919 but yeah, I mean he's saying that if you want 0:21:21.960 --> 0:21:23.639 to stay afloat, you're gonna have to find ways to 0:21:23.680 --> 0:21:25.199 make money, and this is a great way to do it. 0:21:25.320 --> 0:21:28.560 I think the horse is already out of the barn. Unfortunately. 0:21:29.440 --> 0:21:31.880 Well we'll see. I guess they've gotta they're they're gonna 0:21:31.880 --> 0:21:34.640 try to protect themselves, that's for sure. At any rate, Nick, 0:21:34.760 --> 0:21:37.800 I hope we answered your question about RSS feeds and 0:21:37.920 --> 0:21:42.520 how so. I guess that just brings us around two. Well, 0:21:42.600 --> 0:21:44.159 you know what, it brings us around too, right, But 0:21:44.160 --> 0:21:46.760 WoT I thought we were already doing. No, I've got 0:21:47.080 --> 0:21:54.359 man listener mail. Now I have a bigger headache. So 0:21:54.480 --> 0:21:58.840 this listener mail comes from Okay, I'm guessing that's the 0:21:59.160 --> 0:22:01.560