What's this I see ..... ?

[e_nviable]

in the bottom right hand corner of my store front page ......... RSS in a box ?

when I clicked on it it took me to a preview of my newly listed auctions ........

I've seen a few postings mentioning RSS but haven't a clue what it is/does

Can someone/anyone enlighten me in words of no more than 4 syllables please ........... I can be a noy 'foggy' when Monday's approaching rapidly

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[e_nviable]

......... to whom ? And how do you request one if you want one ? ....

*thinks she's no wiser ............. so many questions*

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[e_nviable]

Thanks quad

*she thought that's what the 'refresh' button was for ....... *

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[Idealproductsales]

RSS = Really Simple Syndication. In a nutshell, it is a generated .xml (eXtensible Markup Language) which, like html can be read by many different "readers"..

As an example, look in the left side of forums showing expiring auctions - that's basically an RSS feed. People can download an RSS feed reader for their desktop for example, and subscribe to a feed to keep up with what is going on. It originally started as a news reader, but has since evolved into "almost anything you can think of" reader.

Blogs have RSS feeds where they can cross link and include other blogs' content into their blogs, for example (Technorati comes to mind..)

You could export an RSS feed for your store and listings into, say, your own web page, for example (I'm actually going to be doing that, eventually) or into your blog, or someone else's blog, etc. (people also do that with their amazon affiliate account..)

It can also be used to feed base.google.com (formerly known as froogle ), I think. (I forget what feeds they will accept, it's been over a year since I used that.. used to sell incense and aromatherapy products, but my "premium" niche never really took off..- too expensive.. I guess people wanting incense and stuff want "cheap".. that , or I missed my target market)

Anyhow, hope that gives you some idea of what RSS is.. I could go into a lengthy technical discussion of what it is and how it works, but I'm sure most people would just tend to read about 1/3 the way through and fall asleep... or look up with eyes glazed over. LOL!

[e_nviable]

Cheers for that info, ideal

........ so - in theory (and even more simple terms) I could put one in my Facebook page and anyone who wanted to see my updated auctions could subscribe to it ?

*ambles offer to consider the possibilities*

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[JanetB]

RSS = Really Simple Syndication. In a nutshell, it is a generated .xml (eXtensible Markup Language) which, like html can be read by many different "readers"..

You could export an RSS feed for your store and listings into, say, your own web page, for example (I'm actually going to be doing that, eventually) or into your blog, or someone else's blog, etc. (people also do that with their amazon affiliate account..)

I'd love to do that for my website but I still don't understand how to do it. Can I have a lesson?

~Jan~

[Idealproductsales]

Actually, if it is a properly formatted RSS feed, you can put the feed in your facebook page itself (That is, if Facebook allows the option to "Add RSS Feed" or something similar...) and show a "ticker" list of all your auctions *in* your facebook page, so they click on it and come here to your auction.. same way you can add it to a website.

To add it to a website, however, you need an RSS parser (facebook might have one built in, I think.. I forget if I am a member there though.. LOL! havent tried it - there's similar sites I cant think of their names offhand at the moment- LiveJournal for example, where you can definitely add rss feeds.. )

For a website, if you have a CMS system that can take an RSS feed, or a blog such as wordpress, you can add the feed to your site using their tools, but for a site that doesnt have a parser, you would either have to make one, or find a stand-alone application you can install that will parse the xml feed, and convert it into HTML.. which is then displayed on the page.. to me, it's a very simple concept, but then, this sort of programming is my day job

It isn't that difficult to do, but it also isnt a simple cut-n-paste job every time