Online Shopping & RSS Feed Notifications
RSS Defined | How to Use RSS Feeds | RSS Feeds and Online Shopping
RSS Defined
The first question you may be asking is what the heck is RSS? You've likely read or heard the hype lately. Those little
orange RSS icons [similar to: 
] are everywhere on the web these days. From
the RSS wiki page in a nutshell:
RSS (which, in its latest format, stands for "Really Simple Syndication") is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts. An RSS document, which is called a "feed", "web feed", or "channel", contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with their favorite web sites in an automated manner that's easier than checking them manually.
more...
In plain speak: RSS gives you the ability to get content updates from web sites without actually going
to the site. This includes online stores. Often times popular and reputible web stores publish coupons, sales,
promotions and special offers through RSS feeds. This site offers On Sale and Promotional RSS feeds from several
merchants.
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How to Use RSS Feeds
There are many ways for you to get syndicated RSS content delivered with up-to-the-minute updates. There are stand alone RSS readers
you can acquire...also called Aggregators. Once you install one of these aggregators,
you would take the RSS feed URL behind the little orange RSS icons you see and plug them in to the aggregator/reader. That's all there is
to it. You'll then have updated content from respective sites delivered to you.
More efficiently, though, many social and personalization environments on the web now have feed aggregators included for you to use free
of charge. For example, if you have an email account at Yahoo!, you can use the RSS reader in My Yahoo! to get a consolidated look at
your RSS feed subscriptions.
Often times you'll see icons on sites that represent one of these personalization platforms like:
or 
or 
So for example if you have a My Yahoo! account, you would just click the Yahoo! icon and wala. Instant RSS subscription configured at your
My Yahoo! personal page, rather than on a stand alone feed reader/aggregator.
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RSS Feeds and Online Shopping
This is where the Stingy Hippie comes in! He's compiled a large list of merchants who offer RSS Shopping feeds for their
customer base. Essentially, these are promotional feeds that you can subscribe to that highlight all kinds of killer bargains.
Deals include online coupons, seasonal and clearance sales, free shipping offers, and just about anything that will save you
money.
Realistically, it would be a difficult task to keep an eye on multiple merchants to see what kind of sales and special offers
might be on the table for particular time frames. By subscribing to the sale shopping and coupon RSS feeds on this site, you
can aggregate bargains from respected merchants in your RSS reader for one quick view. When stores update their offers, you'll
have the immediate updates syndicated to you. This is a money saving tool you can take full advantage of! For a list of all
stores with promotional RSS feeds and special offers click here.
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