What Is RSS And How Do I Use It?

There's a big buzz about RSS these days. You see the buttons all over the place. So what is RSS and how do I use it?

What Is RSS?

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. Websites all over use it to provide its users with a news feed.

A news organization like Reuters might have a RSS feed containing all their current top stories. They update this feed every time a new news article enters circulation. Such a feed could be updated every few minutes.

Other websites, like South Africans in Austin, could have a feed that contains information about the latest additions or updates to the site, or announcements, like when the next social event will be held.

One of the great things about RSS is that it allows you to stay up to date with a website and its latest news without giving your email address away. In these SPAM-filled days we find ourselves in, that is quite a benefit!

How Do I Use RSS?

To use RSS, you will need an RSS Reader. Then you simply get the URL (web address) of the RSS feed you're interested in and add it to your list of RSS feeds in your RSS Reader.

Your RSS Reader will then check your RSS feed periodically and immediately show you any new articles that have been added to the RSS feed.

You can subscribe to many different RSS feeds and stay up to date with a wide variety of topics from the comfort and convenience of one RSS Reader.

Each news item in the RSS feed will contain a title for the article, a short description of the contents of the article, and a link to the full article if you are interested in reading the whole article.

It's just that simple!

Where Do I Get An RSS Reader?

There are two kinds of RSS Readers available:

• Web-based RSS Readers
• Desktop RSS Readers

Web-based RSS Readers

Websites like Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. let users have personalized home pages. You create an account with them and sign on to your account. You can then personalize the home page for this site, i.e. you can add your own content.

One of the many items you can add to your personalized home page, is one or more RSS feeds. All you'll need is the URL of the RSS feed you want to add, and the contents of your newly-added RSS feed will show up on your personalized home page.

Some websites offer buttons like to add their RSS feed directly to your personalized home page with one click.

The benefit of web-based RSS readers is that you can access your RSS feeds from any computer that is connected to the Internet. All you do is sign on to your personlized home page.

Desktop RSS Readers

Newer versions of browsers like Firefox or Internet Explorer let you subscribe to RSS feeds. Sometimes it is helpful to have a dedicated desktop RSS reader.

Desktop RSS readers are software that you install on your computer, just like any other software you have installed on your computer before. There are many free RSS Readers available.

Some of the popular readers are:

• FeedReader (for Windows)
• Straw (for Linux)
• Shrook (for Mac)

These aren't the only RSS readers out there. To get other options, enter "rss readers" in the search box below.

This short primer should get you going with RSS, a whole new efficient medium on the Internet.

Once you've decided which RSS option you want to use, subscribe to our RSS feed by right-clicking on and copying the link location and pasting it into your RSS Reader.

Happy RSS-ing!