Many MySmartChannels users create channels of content for RSS purposes. A channel is a container for items, information objects that can contain just about anything you want. There's no limit to the amount of data a channel (or channel item) can contain (well, 16GB per item). Here are the steps you can follow to see if our platform might be useful for your RSS management and hosting purposes. First, register as a member on the MyST platform - it's easy and free. After you register and login, click on "My Channels" (upper left). You'll then find a button  for creating a "New" channel (upper right). Once you finish creating a channel, add two or three channel items--just test data for now. The tool bar provides many options for channels - the first option is the "New" channel item button  . In RSS parlance, the name of an item becomes the <title/>, the Summary of an item is the <description/>, and the address of the item (a unique URL in MyST) becomes the <link/>. You can add some test description content; it's like a "body" area that may (or may not) be included in RSS feeds. Feel free to add keywords if you like, although this is not critical for using the platform for RSS use. Once you create a few test items, use the channel view tool bar again to display an RSS 2.0 version of the channel. (see RSS button  on the channel view tool bar) At this point: - you have a private channel for creating content items;
- the channel (and content) is secure and only available to you;
- whether viewing it in HTML or RSS, your MyST credentials are required;
- you are managing this content in a fundamental XML store that can be transformed in any way you desire.
Note the address of the RSS feed; it will look something like this (the number on the end of the address will be your own channel ID): http://myst-technology.com/mysmartchannels/rss/214
This address is the secure address for your channel feed that requires login credentials--yours, for now, but you can grant access to others. You can also use SSL encryption by simply changing the protocol from http:// to https://. You can also test the feed with a newsreader that supports HTTP and/or HTTPS authentication. If you want to test your RSS channel feed as a public feed (i.e., no security credentials required), you must first grant access to the channel by a user named $Public. This can be done on the channel toolbar using the "Security" button  (far right). When you grant permissions to $Public, you are granting authorization for non-credentialed users to "tunnel" into the secure MySmartChannels directly to your channel (and only this channel). The URL address for this tunneling capability is always the same address as your secure RSS feed, but augmented with /public as shown below: http://myst-technology.com/mysmartchannels/public/rss/214
Public feeds can be accessed by any news reader or Web application. If you've gotten this far, you're a genius - our platform's UI is a bit clunky because it is so secure and designed for industrial-strength RSS application development. It seems complex, but it's not - especially once you play with it a bit. MySmartChannels RSS generation capability is extremely flexible. For example, try augmenting your own RSS address with description=full as in this example: http://myst-technology.com/mysmartchannels/public/rss/214?description=full
The above address will generate the RSS description nodes such that they contain the Summary field as an <H3/> plus the Description content (from the MySmartchannels channel item). The net result is a "full-bodied" RSS feed instead of only headlines and links. This gives you a level of agility that may be required from time-to-time, and since the MySmartChannels UI includes a rich text editor, you are free to mark up the body to achieve presentation objectives without worrying about HTML/RSS encoding issues. As you drill deeper into the platform, you can experiment other arguments like "limit". If you have an application that calls for only the three most recent entries, for example, the sample link below achieves this: http://myst-technology.com/mysmartchannels/public/rss/214?limit=3
There's much, much more. I could go on for a long time talking about MySmartChannels and RSS, but this post is already too long (and I have not even mentioned weblogs, XML, OPML, Microsoft Office smart tags, Serence Klips, or a number of other MySmartChannesl capabilities). Drop me a note if you have questions, ideas, or comments. | 
