University of New England

RSS News Feeds

Although more news feeds are planned for the future, most UNE news items can be found in the two feeds below called "UNE News" and "UNE Sports News." You may subscribe to each one by clicking on the links below, then copying and pasting the URLs of the resulting pages into your preferred news reader software.

• UNE News:
• UNE Sports News:

What is RSS?

RSS stands for Really Simply Syndication, or Rich Site Summary, and allows you to automatically receive content from sites or sources that are of interest to you. There are two significant benefits to accessing information through RSS:

1. It saves you time. With the ever-growing number of pages on the web today, it takes longer and longer to find the information you need. With RSS, the information you want is delivered to you in a simple, easy-to-read format, without ads or other distractions. Typically RSS feeds are updated often, so you can be sure you're getting up-to-the-minute news. Also, RSS readers (see below) allow you to view any number of feeds all on one page, eliminating the need to visit several web pages, read email newsletters, or wade through listserv posts.
2. It protects your privacy. Since there is no need to hand over your email address when you subscribe to an RSS news feed, there is never a risk of receiving spam in your email inbox.

Although RSS is still growing, it has already been adopted by virtually all major news sources, such as the New York Times, CNN, and the BBC.

How Do I Access RSS Feeds?

You can install a stand-alone program called a news reader that displays RSS feeds from the web sites you select, enabling you to view dozens of headlines at once. After installing the software, you can add each feed manually from the web site by clicking on the "Subscribe", "XML" (the language RSS is based on) or "RSS" orange button next to the feed. There are too many news readers to list here, but a partial list is available from RSS Info.

An alternative to downloading a dedicated news reader (sometimes called a news aggregator) is to use a web-based news reader. For example, My Yahoo!, my MSN and Google users can now add RSS feeds directly to their personal page.

In addtion, some web browsers, such a Mozilla Firefox, have RSS reader plugins available or have RSS capability built in.

Where Can I Learn More?

• Why an RSS Feed is Your Friend
• UserLand RSS Central
• Fine Tuning Your Filter for Online Information (NY Times)