Convert RSS Feeds Into Any Format With xFruits

By Ryan Dube, MakeUseOf – September 23, 2010 at 02:31PM

add rss feeds to a web page Anyone that knows me well knows that I love RSS feeds. RSS is one of the driving forces behind the connectivity of the web. It is the fastest and easiest way to get your information into the online world. Aibek previously covered 14 cool ways you can make use of RSS feeds, and these really show how versatile and useful RSS can be.

Recently, I stumbled across an impressive new service called xFruits. xFruits has a series of tools called “bricks” which serve a specific information-conversion service. For example, in one case you can convert an RSS feed into a website, and in another you can use data from a feed to create a PDF file. xFruits was briefly mentioned in the directory, but there are so many amazing uses for these online tools that a full review is in order.

Let RSS Information Feed Everything Else

When you first sign up for your free xFruits account, you’ll discover a toolbox of 11 awesome tools that you can use to either distribute your own content throughout the Internet, or organize other peoples’ content into a format that you like the most.

add rss feeds to a web page

The combinations and possibilities are exciting. Organizing and converting information streams from throughout the web into a format that you prefer is a really useful feature, but I’d also like to show you how xFruits can help you to syndicate your own websites and blogs across the web.

Turning Your RSS Feed Into a Multi-Format Syndication Tool

Your RSS feed is a stream of your latest titles, linked back to your site, and with a synopsis of the content. There are people out there that really have no interest in reading blogs, but they may prefer e-books or mobile sites.

One of the simplest ways you can share your content with people is with a simple HTML site that highlights your latest content – sort of a web-based feed reader that displays your feed. You can set this up using xFruits’ very simple RSS to HTML tool.

how do rss feeds work

Once you click “Publish” – the feed gets published to a URL on your public xFruit profile which displays all of the latest titles from your feed in the left navigation bar, and the content in the main panel. The site is extremely simple, but it’s also very efficient.

how do rss feeds work

xFruit also has a whole assortment of buttons when you click on “Add To” that lets you send your new data feed to various other syndication websites. For example your new simple website can go to Technorati, BlinkIt or MyYahoo.

Probably the most impressive tool on xFruits is the Aggregator to RSS. This tool seems simple, but it’s actually rather powerful when used in combination with the other tools. You can list a combination of RSS feeds and it will aggregate them into one, powerful RSS feed that you can use in a number of other xFruits tools.

Previously I reviewed WINKSite, a free service that will create a customized mobile website based off of your RSS feed. However, if you aren’t particular about the formatting or appearance of your mobile site, the xFruit RSS-to-Mobile tool gives you a mobile site in just one click. Here is the mobile website for one of my blogs.

how to use rss feeds

Of course, I think my favorite tool out of the entire xFruits toolset is the Post-to-RSS tool. Using this tool, you can enable as many email addresses as you like to post directly to an RSS feed. A whole team of mobile bloggers could post – all they have to do is send in the post to your unique Post-to-RSS email address (provided inside the tool).

how to use rss feeds

Each incoming email immediately updates the RSS feed with the title (email subject) and the content (email).

how do rss feeds work

This is one of the coolest ways to set up a fast and easy mobile blog to either collaborate real-time with several people, or as a mobile blog that people can follow with any RSS reader.

Another awesome tool if you have visitors that may prefer to read your latest updates in PDF format, is the RSS-to-PDF tool. You can even feature a “PDF” button on your site that let your visitors download the PDF file of your latest updates.

how to use rss feeds

I’ve saved the best for last. Most of the available online tools that “post” RSS updates only insert embedded Javascript somewhere on your page that displays the latest RSS titles. The Feed updates are not issued as actual posts to your blog.

Amazingly, this little site called xFruits has succeeded where so many others have failed. By filling out a simple form that includes the path to your xmlrpc.php file (make sure posting via xml is enabled on your blog!), you can instantly convert an RSS feed into actual blog posts on your blog.

add rss feeds to a web page

You could use this feature to stream in content from free article directories or syndicate your friend’s sites with auto-updates that link back to their site. The possibilities are limitless.

Browse through some of the useful tools at xFruits, test a few of them out and let us know what you think of the service in the comments section below.

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