What is RSS?  or What is an RSS Feed?

Hundreds of thousands of people use RSS daily but not many people know exactly what RSS is or how to use it. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and you’ll oftentimes hear people refer to RSS as a “News Feed.”

Essentially, RSS is a way to keep up on your favorite website’s and blog’s without you having to do all of the work.

Think of it this way, if you have favorite website’s which many of us do, and want to come back to them time and time again, what is the first thing you do? You bookmark that site right?

But what if that website updates information? Do you know? Usually you have no idea unless you remember to visit that website again from your bookmarks and look around to see what has changed.

The same is true of blog’s. You don’t know if someone has updated a favorite blog of yours unless you visit it; again, usually via your bookmarks.

RSS allows you to know the moment a website or blog is updated. Not only does it immediately send you a notice that it has been updated, but you can read it at your own leisure.

Using RSS

The very first thing you’ll want to do in order to subscribe to your favorite website’s and blog’s is to get an RSS Reader. Most of them are free of charge and easy to use. I personally use Google’s Reader.

Once you’re all set up on a reader, you’ll need to be sure that the website’s you frequent offer RSS feeds. A very quick and easy way to do this is to simply look for some icons such as this:

Just click the button on any of these sites and follow the instructions.

Sometimes you’ll see a page that looks like nothing but a bunch of code on it. Don’t worry, it’s not broken…all you need to do is copy what’s in the URL or in other words, what’s in your address bar and add it to your reader.

If you don’t want to go through the hassle of getting a Reader to manage your favorite website’s, then you may want to consider just subscribing via email. Many website’s offer this as an option.

Just remember, if you want to keep tabs on your favorite sites, want to know what is the newest of the new, then be sure you use a Reader and subscribe via RSS.