What is an RSS Feed?
Overview
Rather than visiting all of your favorite sites a few times a day, you can bring the web to you!
An RSS Feed allows users, after downloading news aggregator software - which is usually free or very inexpensive - to receive content as soon as it is updated. Instead of checking a web page over and over to see if there is new content; a message pops up on your desktop to notify you about updates and the web page comes to you.
Technical Overview
RSS (Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a protocol of XML. XML is a data formatting language used in website development. RSS provides an easy method of syndicating (sending out) and aggregating (sorting) web content and news. Using RSS files, a data feed is created that supplies headlines, links, and release summaries from the Virginia.gov portal. Citizens can have the most recent content from our portal delivered to them via a news aggregator or viewer, a piece of software specifically tailored to receive these types of feeds.
Once a news aggregator has been installed on your computer, you simply click the link next to the orange XML button 
or copy the RSS news feed URL (web address) to the aggregator.
Many news aggregator software programs are free or inexpensive. In addition, several products, such as Microsoft's Sharepoint, allow RSS feed integration.
Awasu- news aggregator that is free for personal use.
Newsgator - popular news aggregator that works with Microsoft Outlook.
Neither Virginia.gov nor the Commonwealth of Virginia endorse either of these products. The above links are listed as resource examples only.
