RSS Feed Icon
The world of computers is full of acronyms and stuff that sounds complicated. RSS, DoS, HTML, XML. Alphabet soup, that’s all it seems to be. Below, I’ll explain what RSS is, and why it can make your life simpler. You can also check out this great video that offers a plain-English explanation.
Most people who have been online for a while have developed a set of web sites they like to visit regularly. CNN, the local newspaper, ESPN, and so on. Maybe you are a fan of Formula 1 racing and check ESPN regularly to see if there’s any new articles on F1 racing. Every time you do that and there’s no new articles, you’ve wasted some time. Maybe you’re also a fan of a certain wine web site (hint hint hint) that you check every few days to see if there’s a new article. If not, you’ve wasted time.
Who wants to waste time? We’re all busy and have better things to do than waste time checking on web sites that haven’t been updated since the last time we checked.
RSS changes all of that. Instead of you going to web sites to check them, RSS brings new articles at your favorite web sites to you.
Sounds cool, right? So how does it work? To be frank, I really don’t know how it works. There’s a lot of computer magic going on behind the scenes. But I know that when I find a web site I want to follow for new updates, if it has RSS I’m a happy camper. I take a URL (one of those things that starts off with “http://”) that is the site’s feed and I plug it into my RSS reader.
The RSS reader can be a stand-alone application, like one of the great apps made by NewsGator. I launch my app, and any new articles from my favorite web sites are all in one place for me to review and read. The RSS reader can also be a web page, such as My Yahoo! or Google Reader.
When you see a reference to an RSS “feed” or the now familiar logo, you can click on it to get the RSS feed and copy/paste it into your reader. Some web browsers are smart enough to ask if you want to add the feed to a specific reader. This is another great reason to use the Firefox browser. Firefox even puts the RSS logo in the address bar. Click on it see what happens!
Give RSS a try and see if you find it makes your life simpler and saves you time.
Oh yeah–I never said what RSS stands for, did I? Of course, you don’t need to know what RSS stands for to understand how to use it, right? If you’re dying to know, however, it stands for Really Simple Syndication.
That’s all you need to know! But if you’re a serious geek, you can review the Wikipedia entry on RSS.
