RSS is a standard/format (trying to keep this in plain English and non-technical) that pushes information to you instead of you having to dig around and find it. This sounds dreadfully boring to me as a poker player, but hear me out, as after reading this you should have more time to spend playing poker!

RSS is a way of streamlining information you request into a more manageable/readable format, which means you can find what you are looking for, faster.

You "subscribe" to different RSS feeds that interest you, and periodically your RSS reader of choice will ping the site for an update and grab any info that you have asked for. There are a lot of RSS Readers out there, some are more fancy than others, but they all essentially do the same thing - read the XML feed and display it to you in a nice format so you can quickly scan through and pick items that catch your interest.

So, how can RSS help us poker players? Well, for one, have you ever been to a busy poker forum and battle to scan through all the new posts and replies etc? Well now you can just grab the Forum feed and keep an eye on new posts, and IF you like the look of one THEN you go to the site and read it in more detail etc. Why bother opening the site if you just want to read a little bit of content?

So, to start off, have a look at this page - we have found 2 very good RSS FAQs/Tutorials that even my dear mother could understand (I'm quizzing her on RSS next week). Then we have highlighted the 4 most important feeds on PokerDIY that mean you can stay on top of things:

  • Upcoming public poker games and poker freerolls at the popular pokerrooms Upcoming Poker Games and Freerolls - never miss another poker freeroll password !
  • Our poker blog to announce poker news, site updates and league results Our Poker Blog - Developments, updates and poker news
  • Get involved with the most recent poker forum posts and discussions Recent Forum posts - Got a poker-related question?
  • An RSS feed of the latest 25 poker articles Latest Poker Articles - The last 25 poker artivles
Another real-life example to mix poker and RSS is our Upcoming Games Feed- as soon as anyone makes a public game (your private games are never syndicated through RSS) then your RSS Reader will grab it and show it to. For example, I use an RSS Reader called Sharp Reader - it acts a bit like Instant Messenger, so when I get updated feeds they pop-up briefly and I can click on it if it interests me (you have to be careful to not waste too much time reading your feeds, and be VERY selective - this just gives you more information in a more streamlined format to get through each day, but you should find you can find the information you want more efficiently). So imagine if we set up a private poker freeroll with a password and limited spaces - the first 10 people get in... you get notified immediately via RSS and a little message pops up on your desktop or browser saying there is a new tourney... the password is yours for the taking ;)

So, check out our consolidated page of our most important feeds (they are scattered around PokerDIY too - keep an eye out for the little orange RSS symbol - An RSS feed of the latest 25 poker articles) and grab the ones you want, and never worry about missing another poker freeroll password or useful forum discussion! Now you know what RSS is, you'll start to notice these little orange icons everywhere, so start grabbing the feeds you like...

If you are still unsure of how RSS can benefit us poker players, feel free to ask a question on the forums and we'll try to help!

Comments

  1. PokerDIY member

    Hi Tanya, When looking at aniddg feeds to your facebook page it isn't always a one size fits all approach. There are a few key things to remember when considering porting content through to your page and posting it out to your fans.The first thing to consider is (no matter what content it is that you are porting into your page) what the overall aims and objectives of your facebook page are. If your objectives are to form a relationship with guests and encourage a fun and friendly environment where you can share images, stories and interesting information then you need to ensure your content fits that goal. If your objectives are purely informative and more of the marketing feel then placing more of this type of information on the page will work.The second thing to consider is the general demographics of your likers and why they became likers to begin with. If your likers fit your target market, are generally past guests and were enticed to the page with a keep up to date and receive the occasional special offer' then you need to ensure that this does continue and your likers don't get bombarded with a collection of marketing and media posts.The third thing, and really the question that is only answerable on a case by case basis is the actual content of the feed posts. Where we recommend a blog feed as it is generally softer content, about your specific business/ closely related topics and information your current/past/ future guests may want to read about it is not always going to be the case for a media feed, and where a website does fully allow the reader to skip the section, if this feed is going to be pulling through to your status updates and in turn their news feed it is a bit harder to ignore (and to do so they may just remove you from their news feed definitely not a positive action).I guess with all of this in mind, you really need to assess what the content will include. Does the feed content fit the same feel and style of your current posts and information? Does it add to the page feel and not only fit in but also reach and improve your objectives.If you want to, you can send through a little more information about what the media feed will include, from that we can take a look at how it fits your current page and give you our feel as to whether or not this would be a good idea.Cheers Mel+4Was this answer helpful?

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