What is an RSS Feed? The popularity of blogs and other “content fresh” websites has made it difficult to follow all of the new updates from each of your favorite websites. Or has it? Using a technique called Really Simple Syndication, or RSS, fresh content can be automatically pushed to you for your review.
Rather than visit each of these websites daily to see what’s new, you can arrange to have all of the updates consolidated in one location for easy review. Great idea, eh? That’s what an RSS feed can do for you.
An RSS feed is an automated list of the new material added to a blog or other website. By subscribing to the feed that the website offers you can have all the latest content delivered directly to you.
We’ve all seen the familiar (usually orange) RSS feed image like the one shown to the right. That image indicates that the content of the website you are visiting is available as an RSS feed. And that means you have the ability to get automated content from that website. Cool.
What? How do I subscribe to a Feed Reader?
There are many feed readers or aggregators available. A few of the most popular are:
Once you have signed up for one of these services, simply go to the website you want to follow and click on the RSS subscribe button. These buttons are usually located prominently on the website page, but can also be found in the address bar of your browser.
After you have your feed reader ready to go, visit your favorite website to see if it has a feed. You’ll see a feed icon in your browser’s address bar like this:
As an alternative, you will often see the familar RSS image link placed prominently on the web page. You can either click the icon in the address bar or the image icon on the page. Either link should allow you to access the feed reader for the website.
It’s really that easy. Subscribe to one of the feed reader services, visit your favorite site, click the mouse on the RSS feed button and let the good times roll. Your life just got simpler. And that’s a good thing.
[eof]
