The same licensed news can reach you in several ways. The choice affects how fast stories appear, how much engineering you need, and what happens when something breaks. Start from how your product uses news, then pick the transport.
RSS: working by this afternoon
RSS is a standard format that almost every content system can already read. Point your platform at the address and headlines begin to appear. The trade-off is that you poll for updates, so new stories show up on your schedule, and a story that enters and leaves the feed between two polls can be missed.
API: ask for exactly what you need
An API suits products where news responds to the user: a search box, a company profile, a watchlist. Your application sends a query and receives matching stories. It is the most flexible option and the one that needs the most development, including sensible handling of rate limits and errors.
FTP: files on a schedule
File transfer delivers each story as a file, pushed to your server or collected by you. It works with old and new systems alike, it is easy to audit because every file is there to inspect, and a failed transfer can simply be repeated. It is a good fit for archives, overnight processing, and print workflows.
A guaranteed streaming connection
When a missed story has a cost, as it does on a trading floor, look for a persistent connection with acknowledged delivery. The sender keeps each story until your system confirms it has arrived, and a broken connection resumes from the last confirmed item instead of starting fresh.
Five questions that settle it
- How quickly must a story appear after publication: seconds, minutes, or hours?
- What does a missed story cost you?
- Does the user search, or do you decide what to show?
- Who will maintain the integration in two years?
- Do you need proof of what was delivered and when?
