Subscription in a nutshell

Website subscription marks a quantum leap in the way that people and machines can interact with the information on websites. Whereas traditionally you have had to visit websites regularly to see if they have been updated, with a subscription the updates are delivered to you. EMIS use the Atom format for subscriptions, and a subscription to a particular website service is known as a "feed". Subscribing to an Atom feed is somewhat like subscribing to a mailing list, however Atom has the following advantages

• An Atom feed is a "clean" information medium: not cluttered with adverts, spam and irrelevent information
• You control the Atom feed: it does not control you
• The information can be used in many different ways: unlike email, which can only be read by an email client, an Atom feed can be read by any internet-connected device because of it's standardised structure

How does Atom work?

Whenever EMIS updates one of the Atom-enabled pages on this website, an Atom feed of those updates is automatically generated. A feed reader will regularly check all the feeds you are subscribed to, and notify you if they contain new information.

How do I subscribe?

Many feed-enabled websites will display an orange icon, or a simple orange button with on it. To subscribe to a feed you just copy and paste the location of the feed file into your feed reader, everything else is taken care of automatically.

Where do I get a feed reader?

There are many different feed readers you can use, many of which are free, and are also sometimes called "news aggregators". There is a good list of readers here, and the Wikipedia entry on Atom contains some more useful links, as well as a comprehensive history of this file format.

This image shows an EMIS feed with 9 new items as displayed in Bloglines, a popular web-based feed reader. The advantage with a web-based feed reader is that your subscriptions travel with you wherever you go. That means you can read some of the items in your reader at work, then pick up where you left off when you get home.

Who else uses feeds?

The list of feed-enabled websites grows daily, as more businesses and people realise the power of the information subscription model. For example, the BBC has a wide selection of feeds, and even Microsoft and the Prime Minister have feeds.

Note: While we are aware of the competing RSS file format we provide all our website feeds in Atom format. Atom has the backing of the World Wide Web Consortium, and an official specification, as well as being under continued development.