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What is RSS?
You’ve maybe seen people use the words RSS, XML and Feeds and wondered what it was all about.
First thing to know is that although all those fancy acronymns sounds techie and confusing, RSS is designed to be simple, and to simplify the way you use the internet over all.
Reading Blogs and other websites is great but it can take hours to get around all the blogs and news sites that write interesting content, RSS means that you don’t have to do that.
The reason RSS is often refered to as a Feed is because it feeds you all the content from your chosen blogs and websites into one place, It is a way online for you to get a quick list of the latest story headlines from all your favorite websites and blogs all in one place.
So for example, There might be a few websites that you love to read and you check them daily for new content, you may well find that either there is nothing new or that you have missed a whole raft of stuff you wish you could have read earlier.
With RSS, You don’t ever have to go to a site that has no new
material neither will miss the stuff you wanted to read earlier. You subscribe to the site and get an update every time
they post.
Subscribing to RSS feeds
To “subscribe” to a website or blog’s RSS feed simply means that you are telling that website or blog that you want to be kept up to date with any new content, It’s like subscribing to a magazine or newsletter. Instead of getting a magazine or email, you will just get a list of headlines sent to your RSS reader.
In order to subscribe to a website or blog’s RSS, all you have to do is click on an RSS symbol which are normally little orange icons, or a text link of the words “Subscribe to our RSS feed” on the website or blog.
RSS Readers
Now, because nothing is ever standard on the web like dealing with different operating systems, Mac vs. PC, and different flavored browsers like Internet Explorer, AOL, Safari, and Firefox, there are lots of different readers but if your new to all of this Ill simplify it for you, go and sign up for Google Reader, its free and in my opinion one of the best readers out there.
If you want a guide to using Google Reader I won’t reinvent the wheel, a great one has already been written here.
RSS FEEDS
If you want to keep up to date with the blog subscribe to the RSS Feeds (What’s a RSS Feed?)
Blog Comments Feed (You can tick a box when leaving a comment if you want to get emailed every time someone responds to a comment you’ve made)
NOT INTO RSS?
If you’re not sure what all this chat about RSS is, then pop your email in the box below and you’ll get a daily email (if I’ve written sometime that day).
