So what is RSS anyway?
RSS is a fantastic way to cut through all the ‘noise’ on the Internet and get constantly updated content from your favorite blogs and Websites delivered to you.
Subscribing to RSS feeds is like having the paperboy perpetually deliver your favorite newspapers. However, with RSS the paperboy comes at all hours of the day and these subscriptions are absolutely free.
Darren Rowse of ProBlogger says:
What if you could tell a website to let you know every time that they update? In a sense, this is what RSS does for you.
RSS flips things around a little and is a technology that provides you with a method of getting relevant and up to date information sent to you for you to read in your own time. It saves you time and helps you to get the information you want quickly after it was published.
According to Wikipedia:
RSS (most commonly expanded as “Really Simple Syndication”) is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format.
Here is a cool video by CommonCraft that illustrates what RSS is.
Where can I find RSS content?
Most blogs and websites have an RSS option for subscribing to updated content. Being that bloggers want you to subscribe to their RSS feeds they will make it very easy for you to find, and common places include the top of left/right sidebars, at the end of posts and in the footer of the blog.
The most common icons are variations of the little orange pic at the top of this post. The collage below shows some more examples of what to look for.
Image from ProBlogger.net
For those who use Internet Explorer 8, there is even a useful RSS icon on your toolbar that automatically searches for any RSS feeds on the page you are currently viewing.
So How Do I Use RSS?
The first thing you need is an RSS reader. I use Google reader, mostly because it was the very first reader I came across, but also because it is simple and convenient for me as Google is my search engine of choice. A couple other popular readers include Bloglines and Newsgator.
Once you find your reader of choice (If you search with Google I highly recommend their reader) make sure you sync it up with your browser. Just go to the settings on your browser, or preferences section and choose the reader you want.
Update: Although I am loyal to Google Reader I wll be checking out the new FeedDemon 3 (it’s Newsgator’s version for Windows users) because it now syncs up with Google Reader and has some other cool features people have been telling me about. Once I test it out I will write up a little review post and insert a link here.
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