A common feature on modern websites is the ability to grab the syndicated content from a website without actually visiting the website.  Commonly used for podcasting or getting articles, rss feeds coupled with a feed reader have maded it even easier to get the content you want.

We’ve utilized this technology in the design of our website and nearly every page on the website can be subscribed to via a feed reader.  All you have to do to access the feed is type “feed” to the end of the page address in your address bar of the page (see screenshots below).  Here is what a feed your address bar would look like before:

And here’s how it looks after (notice that the only difference is the addition of “feed” on the end):

What about podcasting?

Podcasting is really just a feed that happens to have a .mp3 audio file attached to it.  Any feedreader is capable of obtaining that audio file but you require a special “podcatching” software to automatically read the .mp3 file and play it.  Podcasting is most popular with the Apple Itunes software but there are other options available.  The sermons we publish on waterlooassembly.org are available via the feeds and can be subscribed to via the sermon feed address.

More help…

There are plenty of resources on the internet that will do a far better job of explaining what feeds are and what podcasting is than we can here.  So, rather than going into more detail we’ve assembled a list of links that should prove helpful for you in understanding the value of and how to subscribe to the content of waterlooassembly.org:

• Wiki entry on podcasts
• A great tutorial on RSS by Paul Stamatiou
• A introductory article on getting podcasts (with software helps)