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News feeds and podcasts
What are news feeds and podcasts?

News feeds and Podcasts alert you when new content is added to a website. They allow you to get the information that you want, as soon as it is available without actually having to visit the website. The information provided in the news feed is presented as headlines, so you can instantly see if it is something that you would like to read or listen to in more detail. The service is safe and easy to use, as the user does not need to disclose their email address and you can unsubscribe at any time.

News feeds provide information on text based content, whereas Podcasts are feeds of audio content.

RSS feeds won't work in older browsers - you'll need IE 7 or Firefox 3, for example



How do I use them?
Because these feeds are designed to be read by computers rather than people, you will need a news reader (and an audio player for the Podcasts). This software regularly checks the feeds to see if there have been any updates and there are many different versions for you to choose from. The latest versions of popular browsers such as Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 3 have built in new readers, but you can also download a standalone tool, which works in much the same way as your email system.

Once you have a news reader, all you need to do is decide on what feeds you wish to subscribe to. You need to keep your eye open for the orange buttons (see those on the right of this page) that indicate that there is a news feed available. Just click on these buttons and you will be taken to the appropriate feed. To listen to the Podcasts you will need to either dowload the audio or subscribe to the feed using software such as iTunes, Juice or Doppler.

The method that you use to subscribe to a news feed depends on the software that you are using as your reader. However, one method that should work no matter what system you are using is, to open your reader, click on the 'Add' or 'Subscribe' link and then copy and paste the URL of the news feed into your reader.

Where do I get a news reader from?
There are lots of different news readers to choose from, some of which are listed below:
Browser
Firefox
Internet Explorer

Mac OS X
Newsfire
NetNewsWire
Vienna

Windows
Newz Crawler
FeedDemon
RSS Owl
Awasu

Online
Bloglines
Microsoft Live
NewsGator
My Yahoo!
Google Reader

More
Google News Readers


Podcast software
iTunes
Juice
Doppler

Schoolzone is not responsible for the content of external internet sites

 

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