What is RSS?

admin January 15th, 2009

What does that big orange button stand for anyway? So glad you asked! It’s an RSS icon. RSS stands for Really Simple Subscription, and it’s a great tool. You’ll be hearing more and more about it as the service catches on.

What it does is take the articles posted on all of your favorite sites and delivers them to you in one simple package. It’s kind of like having your own personal magazine filled with content from blogs and web sites of your choosing.

When an article is posted to a site, it gets sent out in what’s called a feed to the various services available on the Internet. These services are called feed readers. There are quite a few out there. You just pick the one that works for you and set up a quick account. Any time you run across a site that you want to read again, you simply click on the orange RSS button and then choose your particular feed reader to add that site to your feed.

Here are some of the advantages of RSS:

  • no email address needs to be given out (so no in-box clutter)
  • the articles are available for you when you open the feed
  • you are in control of when you access the content
  • your email address can’t be shared with advertisers or spammers
  • articles are listed in the feed with a title and excerpt
  • you don’t have to remember a long list of sites or spend time going to them

Wondering if a particular web site is set up for RSS? The most common icon is the orange flare button, which might show in the address bar of your browser. The other places to look for it are the sidebar of the site, or at the bottom of the article.

RSS subscriptions are easy to set up Click on the orange button, and a list of readers will show up. Click on one (Google reader, for example) and enter the site in. From there you’ll be taken to the reader page and the web site you’ve just added will be shown on the list. When you want to read a particular post or article, click on the title and voila! There it is.

If you’re looking for a time saver and easy way to read from all of your favorite sites, try out RSS. Go ahead. Click on the little orange button. You’ll be glad you did.

Of course, if you prefer to get updates via email, simply enter your email address in the box underneath the RSS icon and fill out the form that pops up. You can unsubscribe anytime with no hassle.