What is RSS?

del.icio.us tags: rss, rss feed, rss readers

RSS (Rich Site Summary) is a format for delivering regularly updated web content. Many news-related sites, weblogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS Feed to whoever wants it. It’s the easiest way for users to get a the latest content from all their favorite websites and blogs all in one place. The universal icon for a website that has an RSS feed is this …

RSS Readers

You may also see a grouping of icons for popular RSS Readers such as the one on my site. There are several popular RSS Readers such as My Yahoo, Newsgator, Netvibes, Google Reader, Bloglines, plus most email clients and web browsers have built-in RSS Readers

RSS vs Bookmarks/Favorites

So you might say “I have all the sites I read Bookmarked - why do I need to use a separate tool?” First, let me say that RSS Readers aren’t for everyone, but there are advantages that many people find very useful. RSS allows you to easily stay informed by retrieving the latest content from the sites you are interested in. You save time by not needing to visit each site individually. So every time the site content is updated you receive that new content right to your RSS Reader.

For example, suppose you have 50 sites and blogs that you like to visit regularly. Going to checkout the new content for each website and blog everyday could take you hours. With RSS, you can “subscribe” to a website or blog, and get “fed” all the new headlines from all of these 50 sites and blogs in one list, and see what’s going on in minutes instead of hours.

That one place where your RSS list is created is called an RSS Reader or News Reader, and it gathers all the headlines from all the websites and blogs you have subscribed to.

You also don’t need to fill up your email with newsletters, instead you’ll get all of the new content in your RSS Reader. Plus the number of sites offering RSS feeds is growing rapidly and almost all web sites have an RSS Feed.

Who publishes feeds?

Most of the biggest names on the web offer content feeds including USATODAY.com, BBC News Headlines, ABCNews, CNET, Yahoo!, Amazon.com (including a podcast!), local newspapers and many more.

So which RSS Readers should I use and how do I subscribe?

All you have to do is click on an RSS symbol or a text link of the words “Subscribe to our RSS feed” on the website to subscribe to the RSS feeds from that site.

A variety of RSS Readers are available for different platforms. Some popular feed readers include Amphetadesk (Windows, Linux, Mac), FeedReader (Windows), and NewsGator (Windows - integrates with Outlook). There are also a number of web-based feed readers available. My Yahoo, Bloglines, and Google Reader (This is the one I use) are popular web-based feed readers. As you can see, there are plenty of choices for you good RSS readers, so your choice will simply come down to your own preference.

Once you have your Feed Reader, it is a matter of finding sites that syndicate content, like New2Blog, and adding their RSS feed to the list of feeds your Feed Reader checks.

Remember to just look for the RSS Icon or the acronyms RSS, XML, or RDF to let you know a feed is available, and happy reading!