New Life Church, a Kingwood, Texas Assembly of God Church

What is a feed?

A feed is a structured document containing items of content. Normally, these items are summaries of full content available elsewhere on the web. Feeds are most often used by web sites to keep their visitors up to date on new content and/or features.

Feeds generally come in one of two formats, RSS and Atom. Both formats are XML-based, but are slightly different in their implementations. RSS ("Really Simple Syndication") is the most commonplace format, but has no centralized development base. Atom, on the other hand, is standardized, but is not nearly as common as RSS.

What can I do with a feed?

Feeds provide visitors to a web site with the ability to stay current on new content and/or features at the site. In the past, if you found a web site that you enjoyed, you'd simply bookmark it. But these bookmarks tell nothing about what's happened to the site since you last visited it.

Feeds provide a new level of options. Now, if you find a web site you enjoy, you can subscribe to the site's feed (assuming it has one), and you'll then be instantly updated whenever new content or features are added. You can read about the content from the comfort of your desktop, and then proceed to the web site, if you decide you'd like to read more.

How do I use a feed?

In order to "subscribe" to a feed on a web site, you need a special program called an "aggregator". An aggregator is similar to an email client, such as Outlook Express, but instead of email accounts, you have feeds. The aggregator checks all the feeds you are subscribed to, fetches any new content, and then displays it to you in an easy to read format.

Subscribing to a feed does not mean you have to pay for it; it simply means you choose to add it into your aggregator. Although some web sites offer special feeds that you might have to pay for, most feeds are free to use. All of New Life Church's feeds are free to use.

Where can I find an aggregator?

Desktop News Aggregators

• FeedReader (Free)
• FeedDemon ($29.95)
• Pluck (Free)

Web-based Aggregators

• Google Reader (Free)
• NewsGator (Free)

Web Browsers with Feed Support

• Mozilla Firefox (Free)
• Opera (Free)