Introducing RSS Feeds

Another way to distribute your news

RSS -- aka "Really Simple Syndication" or "Rich Site Summary" -- is an increasingly popular way for internet users to receive current news and other information from internet publishers.

At Russia Newswire, we believe it may also prove to be an inexpensive alternative to conventional newswire distribution systems, generally based on proprietary software and hardware owned by the major news agencies. In Russia, a surprising number of important media have chosen not to pay Itar Tass, Interfax or others for direct access to their wire content. That also means they aren't receiving international news releases originated via the conventional international release wires.

So what we'll be doing in the coming months is identifying alternative content for these publishers, and supplying that (plus the RN Wire feeds) via RSS.

In the meantime, we're pleased to be able to offer a consumer version of these feeds here. Initially, these will be the full uncategorized summaries of all Russian and English releases. In the next few months, we plan to introduce separate feeds for each news category (aviation, metals, oil & gas, etc.). But please be patient: Our first priority has to be with distribution to the Russian media. As the only release wire promising to get your release to all relevant Russian media -- rather than the few that subscribe to the wire services -- we think this would be your preferred priority too.

English-language RN Wire feed: http://www.russianewswire.net/rss/headlinesummary.xml

Russian-language RN Wire feed: http://www.russianewswire.net/rss/headlinesummary_r.xml

About RSS

To "subscribe" to our RSS feeds, you'll need to install an RSS reader. There are many available, and most are free of charge.

Some are designed to sit on your PC's desktop as a standalone program. Others work with your existing email software. Still others are integrated into your internet browser. Everyone has their own preference.

But a word of caution. Some feed readers do not work well with Russian cyrillic. For instance, as of May 2005, we do not recommend Feedreader, one of the most popular programs, because of this. You'll see headlines which look like this: "???? ?????? ?????? ????."

We do recommend Bloglines, a web-based system which works well with cyrillic. And we've even offered to assist its developers in producing a Russified version. For more info, go here.

Another one we like is Awasu, a standalone client system (ie, you need to download the software) which also handles cyrillic well. It's available here.

For more information on RSS and how to use it, try this excellent primer on the BBC's news site.