There are a lot of buzzwords on the lips of web designers/developers these days as certain technologies and concepts become popularized for the exceptional power, convenience, and flexibility they offer developers and users alike. Ajax and RSS have rapidly floated to the top of the trendy, buzzword list, and we’ll dive into them all simultaneously in this article as we build a scalable and speedy feed reader that uses Ajax to serve up RSS content from the sites of some web design rock stars. Our feed reader will easily scale to show as many or as few feeds as you like.

You can take a look at the finished version first to get an idea of what you are in for at aarronwalter.com/sandbox/ajax-rss/. The complete source code is available for download at aarronwalter.com/sandbox/ajax-rss/code.zip. 

A Quick Primer Before Getting Started

Before we get started, a little primer on some of these topics. By now you probably know that RSS, which stands for “Really Simple Syndication” in most circles, is a convenient way of syndicating content of all kinds from one site to another. It’s a standardized way of writing XML to encapsulated different content so it can be read by various applications on all sorts of platforms and devices. If you are interested in more details on RSS, swing by Wikipedia for an in depth explanation (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS).