Intro to RSS (Really Simple Syndication)

Sometimes it feels like the whole world is using RSS, but then I talk to someone who works outside of the tech arena and I wake up from geek land, I realize that a majority of people still don’t use it. Currently, the average (if you can have an average or normal anything) person isn’t subscribing to RSS feeds like mad and doing most of their online reading with a feed reader; they’re still surfing and searching for the sites they like.

But this is slowly changing everyday; instead of having to visit a website over and over again to see if any new updates have changed, people are discovering the value of using RSS subscriptions and being able to see any updates via a feed reader or e-mail. Yet another benefit to using a content management system or blog is that they enable you to produce RSS feeds which in turn allow visitors to subscribe. More subscribers = more returning customers / clients = more money for you and your business.

What is RSS?

The acronym “RSS” is usually defined as “really simply syndication” or “rich site summary.”  Notice that there is more than one definition, but no matter what you call it, an RSS feed is just a type of text file that contains a list of items.  Usually these items contain a title, summary or full text post and a link to the URL for that individual site.  They may also include creator’s names etc.

It’s just a list of items?  Why is RSS so cool?

If you read a lot of websites, it can be an incredible time waster and inefficient to continually browse them to try and see when one of your favorite sites has changed.  In addition it takes a long time and you can only view one page at a time in your web browser.  With the acceptance of RSS, sites can publish an RSS feed, which users can subscribe to with a feed reader.

Whenever the website is updated, the feed is updated. The feed reader scans the RSS feed and spits out the list so the subscriber can choose to visit the site or not and be able to see everything that’s changed since there last visit / read.  The other thing RSS allows for is for other sites to syndicate content.  They simply republish the RSS feed and news sites can publish hundreds of separate RSS feeds and contain information on thousands of articles all automatically.  This is a lot more efficient then having humans manually submit everything.

What software do I need to subscribe to RSS feeds?

None. Well, that depends on your preferences.  Many of the websites you already use provide RSS readers including Google and Yahoo.  In addition to web-based feed readers there is a huge collection of stand-alone software based readers available.  If you’ve never used one before I would seriously recommend using one f the simple web-based readers like google’s personalized home or Google reader and if you’re more adventurous and want to look through very large lists of feeds check out bloglines. You should also note there is a very limited feed readers built into firefox.

Can I subscribe to RSS feeds via e-mail and receive updates just like a newsletter?

Absolutely, unfortunately many sites with RSS feeds don’t publish easy options for e-mail subscriptions.  There are many sites that can syndicate feeds into e-mail for you. Just do a quick search for RSS to email.

How do I subscribe to a blog or website?

First you look for a link to their RSS feed, luckily it should b easy to find, because of the universal and official adaptation of the bright orange feed icon.  If you don’t see an icon, then look for a text link that reads either RSS or XML.  For most blogs this is contained in both the sidebar and at the bottom of the footer near the end of the page.

After you’ve found the RSS feed you either link it and it should automatically load your feed reader application or you copy the address into the “add this feed” box or button on your web based reader (like google or yahoo.)

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