RSS Feed Displayed in a Webpage

There are ways to display RSS feed information directly from your RSS feed file and on to your own webpage as fully accessible HTML. The Department of Technology Services has established a RSS-to-HTML solution that you can obtain for free and install if you have a MS Windows server with ASP scripting enabled.

RSS Feed Via a Widget

Another very easy and powerful service available to publish your feed via a widget (shown below) is WidgetBox.com

A Social Bookmarking Button

The following button makes it easy for people to quickly bookmark your page within their preferred bookmarking service. Note: this can be placed on any webpage and is not dependent upon RSS at all. This free service is also provided by AddThis.com (Note also that the following button size is probably the most appropriate size and look for a government site.)

Also note: USA.gov utilizes this same social bookmarking service on their portal pages.

Right Column

RSS Feeds - Tools, Tips, & Techniques

RSS Feeds are utilized all over the Web. The most common use is when you go to a common news portal such as one provided by: Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc. In addition, many people are starting to utilize "feed readers" as a type of personalized managed portal tool to easily manage and read all the RSS subscriptions they have subscribed to.

Today many governmental agencies have already provided RSS feeds for their news releases and subscription notifications to the public. CA.gov has started a webpage that gathers the links to all the RSS feeds of State government into one convenient place for the public to be able to subscribe to.

All State of CA RSS Feeds

Simply put, RSS is accomplished by publishing an XML file in RSS format. You could do this manually by going to the following website for the RSS 2.0 specification, and then fill in the information between the right tags (but this can become complex and unmanageable very quickly.)

RSS 2.0 Specification

(Note: for more information on RSS visit: WebContent.gov RSS)

If your website is served up based on a content management system (CMS), RSS is usually a built-in feature of your CMS. If you do not have a CMS, there are numerous tools you can utilize to create and manage your RSS file. Here are some that are often utilized, and they are inexpensive or free:

• Mirabyte
• Extra Labs Software
• feedforall.com
• Listgarden RSS Feed Generator Program

Once you generate your RSS file, upload it to your website and then provide a link to it from a webpage. However, to enhance how your RSS looks, its functionality and visibility, and track statistics on its use and performance, you will need to utilize other services.

The most common and powerful service for accomplishing much of this is called "Feedburner" (now owned and supported by Google) and it is free. Once you register your feed on FeedBurner, you will find a large set of new ways to enhance how your feed is published and read. (We recommend the Feedburner service because it will enable your feed to be found and read by a much greater audience by publishing your feed out to other websites and feedreader formats. For more information on how to best leverage the Feedburner service for your feed, go to FeedBurner - Optimize, Syndicate, and Track RSS Feeds )

Currently the State Portal "Highlights" section is available as an RSS Feed. The Portal leverages the FeedBurner service to enable an easier method for users to subscribe by email or their favorite feed reader. In addition to FeedBurner there are other "pinging" services available on the web also that will cause your feed to be indexed and consumed by many other services on the Web where the public frequents.

• Pingoat
• Ping-O-Matic
• Feeds Pings

RSS Feed Displayed in a Webpage

There are ways to display RSS feed information directly from your RSS feed file and on to your own webpage as fully accessible HTML. The Department of Technology Services has established a RSS-to-HTML solution that you can obtain for free and install if you have a MS Windows server with ASP scripting enabled (demonstrated below).

If you cannot do Windows ASP on your server, there are numerous other server-side solutions available that you can install on your own server identified within the following article on the Web: RSS To HTML - How To Convert RSS Feeds Into Published Web Pages - A Mini-Guide

Demo of DTS Server-side ASP Script Generating HTML for: CA.gov Portal Highlights

Feeds Displayed in a Widget

Here is an example displaying RSS feeds in a widget. This widget pulls in RSS, Twitter, and YouTube feeds and can be embedded on personalized home pages, blogs, and other websites. Once you've added the widget, there's no technical maintenance—the original source of the information will update the content.

More about widgets and the Office of Technology Services’ widget service http://www.webtools.ca.gov/Multimedia/Widgets.asp.