NewzCrawler is an inexpensive news aggregator program that provides a very efficient way to read news that is syndicated using XML -- more specifically the Rich Site Summary (RSS) protocol. For an excellent overview of RSS, refer to the RSS Workshop site. You can also download a trial copy of NewzCrawler.
I've been using NewzCrawler to check out a lot of blogs that provide an RSS feed. Most blogs don't provide an RSS feed, but most of the more popular ones do. BlogStreet has a list of the top 100 blogs, and you can see which of them have an RSS feed.
Following are some observations about how blogs utilize RSS feeds. This is based on using NewzCrawler. Other news aggregators (such as AmphetaDesk) work differently.
Blogs that provide an RSS feed usually have a small orange button that reads "XML." Sometimes, there may be a button that reads RSS. If I encounter a blog with one of these button, I can click the button to get the URL of the XML file that contains the RSS feed. Then, I can set it up as a new channel in NewzCrawler. In addition, NewzCrawler has a feature called "RSS Autodiscovery," which alerts me (via an annoying flashing icon) that the the site I'm current reading has an RSS feed. Then, I can choose to add that feed as a new channel. For a blog's RSS feed to be "autodiscovered," it must have an HTML tag such as:
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="url_for_rss_file">
I found that this tag is not included in all blogs that have an RSS feed (so autodiscovery won't work for those sites).
By the way, when you view an RSS feed using Internet Explorer, it displays as a nicely structured outline. If you're using Mozilla, you can use View - Page Source to view the RSS feed as an outline.
Once you get things set up in NewzCrawler, reading blogs is very easy. Click here for a screen shot. You may notice that NewzCrawler looks a lot like Outlook Express. The blogs are listed in the Channels list along the left. The headlines are displayed in the upper right, and the description is shown in the lower rights. Click the link in the lower right window and you can view the actual item in the window (or Shift+Click to view it in a new browser window).
The information, of course, comes from RSS files. An RSS file contains three key data fields for each blog item:
In theory, each of these fields provides a bit more information than previous one. For example, I'll scan the titles and if I'm attracted by a particular title, I'll click it to read the description. And then, if my interest remains, I'll click the Link to view the entire item.
But I've found that things don't always work according to my preferences. Some bloggers, for example, don't use the Title field, so NewzCrawler displays the entire Description field in its "Headline" list. Examples include Dave Winer, Richard Scoble and Chris Gulker. Personally, I'd much rather see a headline displayed -- but that's just me.
It seems that very few bloggers take the time to write an actual description (i.e., summary) of each item. In fact, I couldn't find one. Examples of blogs that display the first xxx characters of the blog entry in the Description field include JOHO the Blog, the bIPlog, and this blog (The J-Walk Blog). Examples of blogs that include the entire blog item in the Description field include Boing Boing, Doc Searls, and MetaFilter.
I've also encountered a few RSS feeds that don't validate. Therefore, they are not usable by NewzCrawler. Often, this is just a temporary glitch caused by a coding error.
And finally, some RSS feeds are simply out of whack. JD Lasica runs a great blog, but his RSS feed is really messed up -- so much so that his blog is virtually unreadable using NewzCrawler.
Update: JD's RSS feed works fine now that he's switched to Movable Type.
The preceding is just one person's observations about RSS feeds for blogs -- with a particular emphasis on the NewzCrawler software. I'll be the first to admit that my knowledge of this topic is rudimentary at best. It certainly isn't intended to reflect negatively on any of the blogs I've cited.
In any event, it's always fun to learn about something new. Six weeks ago, I was completely ignorant about the world of RSS. Now I'm slightly less ignorant.
