Unusual RSS Tools

Unusual RSS Tools
By Sharon Housley

As the masses have adopted RSS as a more mainstream communication medium, Web 2.0 businesses and publishers have adopted unique and unusual tools to manipulate RSS content. Here are just some of the various RSS tools that are currently available...

RSS To PDF

Feedbooks, a free RSS aggregator, takes in RSS feeds and converts them into compiled PDFs. The PDFs even include a table of contents. Feedbooks is free to use, and registering will provide access to more options. A similar alternative is RSS2PDF, which is also a free online service that lets you turn an RSS or OPML newsfeed into a PDF.

FeedBooks - http://www.feedbooks.com/news
RSS2PDF - http://rss2pdf.com/

RSS To Image

RSS2Gif is a service that converts RSS feeds to images. The conversion service is a free web-based service.

RSS2Gif - http://www.navi-gez.de/rss2gif/

RSS To Email

RSSFwd is a free web-based service that allows visitors to subscribe to RSS content via their email address. The service polls the subscribed RSS feeds, converts them into HTML-formatted email messages, and then delivers them directly to the subscriber's email inbox.

RSSFwd - http://www.rssfwd.com/

Email To RSS

MailBucket is a public email-to-RSS gateway. Simply forward your email to your-user-name@mailbucket.org and subscribe to the news feed at mailbucket.org/your-user-name.xml. The generated RSS feeds are public and not permanent, so keep that in mind.

MailBucket - http://www.mailbucket.org/index.html

Database To RSS

The SQL2RSS.PHP script allows you to easily create RSS feeds from an SQL database. The script currently supports the conversion of MySQL databases to RSS feeds. When using the SQL2RSS script, the publisher has complete control over the content in the resulting RSS feed. Administrators and publishers control the database query, which allows them the flexibility to determine what data is inserted into the RSS feeds from the database. The SQL2RSS script allows users to easily convert information that is stored in a database into an RSS feed, for syndication and distribution.

SQL2RSS - http://www.sql2rss.com

RSS To Database

The RSS2SQL.PHP script allows you to easily create SQL databases from RSS feeds. The script currently supports the conversion of RSS feeds into MySQL databases. When using the RSS2SQL script, the publisher has complete control over the content in the resulting database. Administrators and publishers control which RSS feed fields are used in the database, giving them the flexibility to determine what data is inserted into the database.

RSS2SQL - http://www.rss2sql.com

Twitter

TwitterFeed is a service that will automatically "twitter" any post that you publish on your blog.

TwitterFeed - http://www.twitterfeed.com/

RSS To SMS

RSS to SMS is a free service that sends messages to a mobile phone for every new item posted to an RSS feed. Keep in mind that normal text messaging fees from your telecom provider apply, so this may not be ideal if a large volume is involved.

Yahoo - http://alerts.yahoo.com/edit_feedalert.php?.done=http://alerts.yahoo.com/myalerts.php

Convert Text To Speech

SpokenText automatically converts RSS feeds into speech. While this service is particularly helpful to visually impaired individuals, it can be used by anyone.

SpokenText - http://www.spokentext.com

Web 2.0 syndication tools are finally catching up with the technology. There are a number of unusual ways that businesses are utilizing RSS feeds.

About the Author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for RecordForAll http://www.recordforall.com audio recording and editing software.