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 What is RSS
RSS is technology - a simple software program -
that allows you to access web and blog content automatically. The acronym's most
popular translation is "Really Simple Syndication. Once your browser or computer
has an RSS reader on board, you can subscribe to any number of RSS "feeds." A
feed is simply a way in which a reader may subscribe to website content - most
commonly blogs or news sites. A news site, for example, may list their latest
headlines or entire articles in their feed every time a new article is
published. A blog would publish this feed as a series of recent posts.
Feeds are published by millions of publishers, from small individuals to large
organizations like Newsweek. The value of a feed is that it brings the most
current site content to you in a format that is easily scanned; further, you are
spared the task of visiting each source site each day. This is typically done
through the use of what is called an 'aggregator' or 'feed reader'.
Feed readers or RSS readers, are software programs that run on your computer (or
PDA or phone); let you easily subscribe to feeds, and allow you to read through
them efficiently. Some are relatively simple, showing the headline and summary.
The fancier ones often work with (or in) your browser to make viewing the
material look much like the source page. Once you have a
reader on your computer, subscribing to a feed with is an easy click or drag
from your browser. Sites that provide RSS feeds will usually have a button for
that purpose.
There are several RSS feed formats as well as one with an entirely different
methodology called Atom. Atom has become popular with some bloggers and blogging
tools. Some aggregators can read both. The other acronyms you will see in "feedspeak"
are XML, which stands for 'extensible markup language' and is the code standard
for these simple text feeds. An 'OPML" file is a format for indexing
hierarchical feed lists. If you dive into this web habit in a big way, your
aggregator or reader may keep your subscription list in an OPML file.
An RSS feed is a great method for staying abreast of issues and topics that
interest you. There are a number of feed "libraries," so to speak, from which
you can learn what's out there in your areas of interest. Google has a built-in
reader that makes the subscription process easy, as does Yahoo. Firefox has a
downloadable extension for the purpose of aggregating RSS feeds, as well as a
default ability to save RSS feeds as "live bookmarks" that update via the RSS
feed. You can download a number of stand alone readers and aggregators; you can
find them through a simple web search.
The whole RSS "movement" is a step towards utilizing the Internet more
efficiently. The trick is to avoid overloading your email inbox with daily
reports that you end up ignoring most of the time. For that purpose, there are
sites like Feedster that will search millions of RSS feeds for articles that are
relevant to your interests. Like any search tool, however, these services are
hit and miss. They are still working off keywords and sometimes what they find
is relevant, sometimes not. But if you want daily news broken into categories,
it's great technology once you learn how to make it work for you.
About The Author
Madison Lockwood is a customer relations associate for
http://www.apollohosting.com
She helps clients understand how a website may benefit them both personally and
professionally. Apollo Hosting provides website hosting, ecommerce hosting, &
VPS hosting to a wide range of customers.
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