What is an RSS Feed?

There is a great YouTube video on the web that explains, in simple terms what RSS feeds are and how to use them.

Syndicated RSS Feed

We have provided syndicated feeds around the CDOT web site using RSS . The YouTube video above does a great job of describing how it works, but here's a little more information about RSS.  You can use this feed to automatically get updates from information that the Colorado Dept. of Transportation provides. There are a couple of ways to subscribe to this content. A few examples are listed below, but CDOT does not endorse any particular reader or aggregator for syndicated content.

Some browsers (FireFox and Internet Explorer 7+ for example) recognize a web page that has a feed on it and you will see this "feed" symbol:

If you see that feed symbol in the browser (in FireFox it may be to the right of the link for the web page and in Internet Explorer it may show up in the toolbar next to the Home icon, then you may be able to click on the button and subscribe to the content. In Internet Explorer, you can click on that button which will show the page and the feed(s) for the page. Then you can subscribe where the page says "Subscribe to this feed." In FireFox if you click on the button, you will see an option to "Subscribe to ..." and you can select the feed you are interested in subscribing to.

Some people subscribe in other on-line web sites to syndicated content, or may download an application to read their feeds. Outlook 2007 for example also has the ability to allow the user to subscribe to feeds. Whatever application you use, you will need to get the URL that provides the feed and paste it into the application.

Hover your cursor over the orange XML button  to the right of the link you are interested in subscribing to. First you need to copy the link. For example, on Windows based systems you can right click and select Copy Shortcut or Copy Link location depending on your browser. For the Macintosh you can right click or <Ctrl-Click> and you will see either Copy Link in FireFox or Copy Link Location in Safari. You will then need to paste that link into an aggregator. Usually you will see a "New Feed", or "Add Feed" in your aggregator. Paste the link into your feed reader or aggregator.