RSS questions answered

This month’s RSS article should help you get your feeds up and running. And if you still have questions after that, post them here and we’ll see if our experts have the answers.

Question: Is RSS generally available for sites other than news? What about photo sites and webcomics?

Answer: RSS feeds can contain links to all kinds of content, including podcasts and videos, or photographs and comics. Many readers will include small images with the summaries, and there are feeds and feed services (like Comic Alert that have lots of online comics to choose from. Getting images is even cooler. Flickr, for instance, lets its users tag their photographs, and you can get a feed from Flickr for any tag that’s in their system. One of my favorite feeds, Mr Bento Porn is a group of pictures of a particular kind of lunchbox. People all over the world photograph their mid-day meal, and I read the feed to get new ideas for my own lunches. (Warning: it’s not a feed to read if you’re hungry!)

Question: What about news sites that require you to log in to access the articles? Can a feed bypass this step, will it make me log in for every article I want to read from that source?

Answer: It is possible to set up “members only” password- or key-protected RSS feeds. Some news sites use this to restrict access to certain features or to full versions of stories. If you have access to one of these news sites, you will be given login information that your RSS reader will require, but you usually only have to enter it the first time you load the feed or if you switch or re-install readers.