The DMA Web Enterprise Business (WEB.mil) hosting solution uses RSS feeds to help move content from official DOD websites to mass emails, mobile apps and anyone else who wants to help distribute official DOD news.
What is RSS? Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many different websites in a single news aggregator, which constantly monitor sites for new content, removing the need for the user to manually check them.
How official DOD websites use RSS? At the bottom of most DMA hosted official websites is a link to the RSS page, such as this one for the United States Air Force: https://www.af.mil/RSS/ This allows anyone who hosts a blog or companies such as news agencies nearby military installations to pull in a feed with the headline, lead paragraph and a link to the news story on the official DOD website.
Value of RSS Feeds? RSS feeds provide a force multiplier for public affairs offices looking to increase the reach of their official information. Many organizations also use these RSS feeds to populate other information distribution systems such as the Straxis-powered mobile apps for the U.S. Air Force, PN Automation-powered mobile apps for the U.S. Marine Corps and the Granicus-powered mass emails for the Defense.gov website.
How to get an RSS Feed? To set up an RSS feed on an official website, the website manager must select one of the content types such as news, announcements, features, or others, and during setup ensure the RSS feed option is selected. Once the RSS feed is created, share the link with any other organization that intends to pull in and display the official DOD information coming from the website. Feel free to call the DMA Service Desk for assistance or check the training website, which is a CAC-enabled system: https://pwtraining.dma.mil/