RSS Feeds and Podcasts

The large amount of Web sites and Weblogs makes it difficult to keep up with the latest locations on all your favorite sites.

Now, instead of going to each of your favorite sites to see what's new, you can assemble your own collection of favorites and have updates from those favorites automatically delivered to your computer or digital device. It's like having the newspaper delivered to your doorstep, only now you are the editor in chief who decides what news you want to keep up with. You decide what content you want, and it is delivered to you whenever there is something new.

RSS feeds: the Web comes to you

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) allows you to automatically get Web content from a variety of sources delivered to your computer.

To use this service, you must register with a free RSS news reader or aggregator. (Entering "RSS readers" or "RSS aggregators" into a search engine such as Google will produce a list of available services.) Once registered, you specify which sites you would like to receive updates from by adding specific RSS feeds to your customized list. You can then view regular updates from all the feeds together, or you can view each feed separately.

RSS is handled through a technology called XML (eXtensible Markup Language). NPR's frequently asked questions about RSS


Podcasting: listen when and where you want

A "podcast" is a downloadable file, typically MP3 audio, delivered via an RSS feed. You can download the file to an iPod or other personal listening device and listen wherever you like, or you can download the audio directly to your hard drive and listen from your computer.

All about podcasting
How to get podcasts