What is RSS?
You may find yourself asking this question from time to time, “What does RSS mean?” First of all, RSS does not stand for Ragu Spaghetti Sauce, although it technically could be your code for Wednesday night’s dinner name. “Kids, tonight we’re having an RSS feed.”
RSS refers to the following XML encoded formats: “Really Simple Syndication“, “RDF Site Summary“, or “Rich Site Summary“. Are you even more confused? Basically, RSS is an easy way to get regularly changing web content. Many news sites, portals, blogs and other online publishers syndicate their web content as an RSS Feed.
Why should I use RSS?
RSS is the solution to the problem for people who regularly check their favorite websites for the latest content. It allows you to easily stay connected to the sites you are interested in by receiving their latest updates. Add in multiple websites that you frequent and it’s easy to see that RSS saves you time. You get the information you want from the sites that you want… all in one location!
How do I get started?
A feed reader will give you the ability to subscribe to the RSS feeds of your choosing. There are many different choices of RSS Readers available depending on your preference or computer platform. Some popular feed readers include FeedReader and NewsGator – plus, there are several online feed readers available: Bloglines, Rojo, Google Reader, Pageflakes and My Yahoo are a few of the popular web-based feed readers out there.
It’s pretty easy to sign up for a feed reader. Once you choose your reader, now you’re free to search your favorite sites to see if they offer content syndication, and add their RSS feed to your feed reader. Look for a small icon (“
“) with the acronyms RSS, XML, or RDF to let you know a feed is available. It’s that simple.
RSS Links: Mannix Marketing’s Example RSS Feeds
