RSS means "Really Simple Syndication" (or let's just say that this explanation is the most known one) and is used for "publishing" the episodes to your podcast.

What is an RSS-feed

The RSS feed is the index of your podcast. It is the place where all people with an internet connection are able to see what you podcast is about, which episodes you have broadcasted, where the mp3 files are placed etc.

The most easy way to make an RSS-feed is as a simple file by means of e.g. Notepad or another program to make simple text files. The file must be available on the internet (e.g. on your own homepage) and the address (the URL) of the file will thus become the address of your podcast.

What does an RSS file look like?

In principle, the RSS file should just describe your podcast, so it must cotain the following information:

Podcast:
- Title: My podcast about flowers
- Description: This is my podcast about flowers, in which I on a weekly basis tell you about the flowers I meet.
- homepage: http://www.blomst.dk

Episodes:
- title: Roses
- Description: Today, I will tell you about all those different types of roses which you may find in Denmark.
- Publishing date: 1 August 2006
- mp3-file: http://blomst.dk/f1.mp3

- title: Tulips
- Desription: Today, I will tell you a little about my new tulip project, which so far seems to be very good.
- Publishing date: 8 August 2006
- mp3-file: http://blomst.dk/f2.mp3

The RSS file must follow a standard called XML (which is related to eg HTML). Ie the file is built up by marked fields (called tags). If for eg you have to state a name in XML it may look as follows:

<name>Bob</name>

A title should be written in the same manner:

<title>My podcast about flowers</title>

The RSS file is structured in more levels with tags "inside" tags. Eg the entire RSS feed must lie within a tag called <rss>. The description of a entire podcast must lie withn a tag called <channel>, while each episode must lie in a tag called <item>. This means that your RSS-feed framework must look as follows:

<rss> 
  <channel>
    <item>
    </item>
    <item>
    </item>
  </channel>
</rss>

If we translate the above description of our Flower podcast to XML it will look like this:

<rss> 
 <channel>
  <title>My podcast about flowers</title>
  <description>This is my pod...</description>
  <link>http://www.blomst.dkk</link>
  <item>
  <title>Roses</title>
  <description>Today, I will ...</description>
  <pubDate>Tue, 1 Aug 2006 00:00:00 CET</pubDate>
  <enclosure>http://blomst.dk/f1.mp3</enclosure>
  </item>
  <item>
  <title>Tulips</title>
  <description>Today, I will ...</description>
  <pubDate>Tue, 8 Aug 2006 00:00:00 CET</pubDate>
  <enclosure>http://blomst.dk/f2.mp3</enclosure>
  </item>
 </channel>
</rss>

To describe that the file is an XML file, it must begin with the following tag:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>

MY PODHEAD