Help with RSS and Podcasting Information

“Make ye mention to the nations; behold, publish against Jerusalem, that watchers come from a far country, and give out their voice against the cities of Judah.”

Jeremiah 4:16

What is RSS?

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and is a dialect of XML. In recent years, RSS has become an increasingly important way of web sites making their news, articles and events available in a manner that makes it easier for people to keep current with the content on these sites. The RSS feed can contain the news item itself, or, may just be a teaser with link to the full text of the item of the web site.

Sites that publish an RSS feed often use an icon such as with a link to their feed. Typically, one clicks the icon or copies this link to the RSS reader software to add that feed as a subscription.

By running RSS Reader or Aggregator software and subscribing to RSS feeds on various web sites, one can more easily keep current with news and events without manually checking each site. This software can usually be configured to check all subscribed RSS feeds on a periodic basis.

EBible Fellowship is currently using RSS feeds for news items and the availability of free Bibles in some languages.

What is Podcasting?

The term podcasting is combination of the terms iPod and broadcasting. It's a means of publishing MP3 or other audio files on a web site such that people can automatically have them downloaded and copied to their portable audio player. Originally, this process was designed to work only with Apple's iPod portable music player but other players are now supported (as well as downloading without using a player) depending on the podcasting software being used.

Podcasting works by a web site utilizing an RSS feed with links to audio files (typically in the MP3 format). By using a podcast enabled RSS reader, one can subscribe to such a podcast feed and have any newly published MP3's automatically downloaded and then optionally copied to an iPod or other portable audio player. This makes it easy and convenient to keep up with audio messages.

EBible Fellowship is investigating the use of podcasting to make recent messages, Open Forums and other audio available in a convenient manner. Such podcasts can likely be listed on various sites that function as podcast directories. This could be one more way of getting the Gospel out into the world.