14 July 2010 Last updated at 03:58 ET

News feeds from the BBC

What are News Feeds?

News feeds allow you to see when websites have added new content. You can get the latest headlines and video in one place, as soon as its published, without having to visit the websites you have taken the feed from.

Feeds are also known as RSS. There is some discussion as to what RSS stands for, but most people plump for 'Really Simple Syndication'. In essence, the feeds themselves are just web pages, designed to be read by computers rather than people.

How do I start using feeds?

In general, the first thing you need is something called a news reader. This is a piece of software that checks the feeds and lets you read any new articles that have been added. There are many different versions, some of which are accessed using a browser, and some of which are downloadable applications.

The RSS Icon.

Browser-based news readers let you catch up with your RSS feed subscriptions from any computer, whereas downloadable applications let you store them on your main computer, in the same way that you either download your e-mail using Outlook, or keep it on a web-based service like Hotmail.

Once you have chosen a news reader, all you have to do is to decide what content you want it to receive. For example, if you would like the latest BBC News Business stories, simply visit the Business section and you will notice an orange button RSS button on your browser.

If you click on the RSS button you can subscribe to the feed in various ways, including by dragging the URL of the feed into your news reader or by cutting and pasting the same URL into a new feed in your news reader.

Most sites that offer feeds use a similar orange button, but some may just have a normal web link.

Most modern browsers, including Firefox, Opera, Internet Explorer and Safari, automatically check for feeds for you when you visit a website, and display the orange RSS icon when they find one. This can make subscribing to feeds much easier.

How do I get a news reader?

There is a range of different news readers available and new versions are appearing all the time.

Different news readers work on different operating systems, so you will need to choose one that will work with your computer.

Using BBC News feeds on your site

If you run your own website, you can display the latest headlines from other websites on your own site using RSS.

We encourage the use of BBC News feeds as part of a website, however, we do require that the proper format and attribution is used when BBC News content appears. The attribution text should read "BBC News" or "bbc.co.uk/news" as appropriate. You may not use any BBC logo or other BBC trademark.

We reserve the right to prevent the distribution of BBC News content and the BBC does not accept any liability for its feeds. Please see the Terms and Conditions for full details.