What is RSS?

What is RSS?What is RSS? I’m often asked this question so thought I’d spend some time to define what RSS is and hopefully clear up some of the issues.

RSS is a technology that is being used by people all over the world to keep track of their favorite websites.

The traditional way to keep track of updates on a website used to be ‘bookmarking’ them in your browser and manually returning to them to see what had been added. This of course can end up being a pain because it requires a lot of work on your part. There’s also a very low threshold before you become overwhelmed with the number of sites you’re trying to follow. The end result is a lot of missed information.

RSS to the Rescue

RSS is a technology that solves all these problems by providing you with a method of getting relevant and up-to-date information sent to you quickly after it is published.

RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” but in practice, most people describe it as a “feed” that you can subscribe to.

It’s essentially a signal, that comes from a blog or site, and whenever that blog or site is updated, it shows up in your Reader so you can catch up on the latest post or news.

How to Use RSS

1. First thing’s first, Get an RSS Reader.

There are a ton of RSS Readers out there but most of the best are free and Web-based. I prefer Google Reader because of it’s very easy to use and of course integrates well with all the other services like Gmail.

Most feed readers are pretty intuitive and work a lot like email. As you subscribe to feeds you’ll see that unread entries from the sites you’re tracking will be marked as bold. As you click on them you’ll see the latest update and can read it right there in the Reader. You can click through to the actual site or blog if you want or move onto the next unread item. As you go through them, they get marked as read.

The best way to learn how to use a Reader is to jump right in and start subscribing to some feeds.

2. Find Some Feeds to Subscribe to.

There are a few main ways to subscribe to a blog or a site’s feed:

On the Site or Blog itself
You’ve probably seen them around everywhere and not even realized what they were. But their are all sorts of ways to subscribe to sites and blogs and they come in many different forms. The most common is the little orange button or a smaller version of the button image that appears at the top of this page. There may also be links and counters called RSS, XML, ATOM and many more.

Here are a few you might have seen:


RSS icons













There are plenty more too. Any time you see any of these it means that the site or blog you are on has a feed that you can subscribe to. You can just click the button and following the instructions to subscribe using the Reader of your choice.

The ole’ Copy and Paste
If you’re having trouble finding the feed to a site but you’re sure that it has one, you can always copy and paste the link directly into the Reader and you’ll immediately be subscribed and on your way.

Through your Web Browser
Increasingly, many Internet browsers also have the ability to subscribe to RSS feeds built right into them. For example in both Firefox and Safari, when you go to a site you can easily tell if it has a RSS feed by looking for the RSS button in the right hand side of address bar. You can then just click the RSS button and subscribe using the reader of your choice. You can even set preferences so that your browser remembers your default reader.

Again, the best way to learn is to just jump right in. If you want to go ahead and get your feet wet now you can start it off by Subscribing to my RSS Feed.

Well I hope that clears up your question of “What is RSS?“.

Enjoy!


« Back to Main