Free Shopping Spree

Want to be the first to get IWantFreeShopping.com's new offers as soon as they are published? Want to find a way to save time if you read many websites? This FAQ will show you how, and will answer some of the common questions about RSS.

     1.What is a news feed?
     2.How do I subscribe to IWantFreeShopping.com's new offers news feeds?
     3.What is a news reader?
     4.What is RSS?
     5.What is syndication?
     6.Where can I find out more about syndication?
What is a news feed?

A news feed (also known as an RSS feed) is a listing of a website's content. It is updated whenever new content is published to the site. News readers "subscribe" to news feeds, which means they download lists of stories at an interval that you specify (every 30 minutes, for example), and present them to you in your news reader. A news feed might contain new offers on a site (as with IWantFreeShopping.com), a list of story headlines, a list of excerpts from the stories, or a list containing each story from the website. All news feeds will have a link back to the website, so if you see a headline / excerpt / story you like, you can click on the link for that piece of content and will be taken to the website to read it.

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How do I subscribe to IWantFreeShopping.com's new offers news feeds?

Step 1:
Download your favorite news reader. If you have never used one before, try installing one of the news readers such as Bloglines.com, Google Reader, or My Yahoo.  Some browsers default to other kinds of readers like NewsGator, Sharp Reader, and Shrook for Macs.

Step 2:
Point your news reader to this address http://IWantFreeShopping.com/rss.xml to subscribe.

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What is a news reader?

A news reader (also known as a news aggregator) is simply a piece of software that you can use to read your subscribed news feeds. It is to news feeds what Outlook, Hotmail, and Entourage are to email.

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What is RSS?

Depending on whom you ask, the acronym RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication", "Rich Site Summary", or any of a handful of others.

The meaning of the acronym is not terribly important, however. An RSS feed (also known as a news feed) is a site's syndicated news feed that you subscribe to using your news reader.

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What is syndication?

Syndication refers to the process that occurs when a publisher provides content in a form that can be consumed by software (like a news reader).

The concept is similar to email:  Your shopping-loving friend Jane (the website publisher of IWantFreeShopping.com, for example) writes you an email about a new offer on IWantFreeShopping.com (the content). Your favorite email program (the software) receives the email, and probably alerts you with gentle "You've got mail!"

With a syndicated IWantFreeShopping.com feed, it works like this: IWantFreeShopping.com (the publisher) adds a new offer to earn shopping sprees to the website (the content). Your favorite news reader (the software) sees that IWantFreeShopping.com has published a new offer, and probably alerts you with a flashing icon on your screen.

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Where can I find more about syndication?

There is a thorough explanation of syndication at Dynamic Objects.

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