What are News Feeds?
You can get the latest headlines in one place, as soon as its published, without having to visit our website. News feeds are also known as RSS which most people consider stands for 'Really Simple Syndication'. The feeds themselves are just web pages, designed to be read by computers rather than people.
Why use RSS?
- Saves time – it lets users speed-read the Net.
- Convenience – enables users to see at a glance when a site or blog has been updated without having to keep revisiting the site.
- Allows access to a richer pool of material.
- RSS can serve as an alert service – instead of using e-mail, users can customize news readers to deliver news on an important subject every 15 minutes.
How do I start using feeds?
The first thing you need is something called a news reader. This is a piece of software that checks the feeds and lets you read any news articles that have been added. There are many different versions, some of which are accessed using a browser, and some of which are downloadable applications.
Browser-based news readers let you catch up with your RSS feed subscriptions from any computer, whereas downloadable applications let you store them on your main computer, in the same way that you either download your e-mail using Outlook, or keep it on a web-based service like Hotmail.
Once you have chosen a news reader, all you have to do is to decide what content you want it to receive. For example you may decide to receive all Crest Nicholson’s news items or just those from one of our regions by using the drop down menu.
Standard RSS icon indicating a feed
If you click on the RSS button you can subscribe to the feed in various ways, including by dragging the URL of the feed into your news reader or by cutting and pasting the same URL into a new feed in your news reader. Most sites that offer feeds use a similar orange button, but some may have only a normal web link. Some browsers, including Firefox, Opera and Safari, automatically check for feeds for you when you visit a website, and display an icon when they find one. This can make subscribing to feeds much easier. For more details on these, please check their websites.
How do I get a news reader?
There are hundreds of news readers available and new versions are appearing all the time, the majority of them are free to download and use.
Different news readers work on different operating systems, so you will need to choose one that will work with your computer.
*Please note Crest Nicholson is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.