RSS: what it is, how and why you should get it.

If you are not already a subscriber, this is the perfect time to sign up, via RSS or via email.

When someone starts a blog or has a website that is frequently updated, he or she encourages friends and associates to “subscribe” or “sign up” for updates. Usually this signing up can be done in two ways, we can sign up via email, and every time a new article is posted on that blog we get it in the form of an email message, or we can sign up via RSS feed.

RSS is defined as Real(ly) Simple Syndication, Rich Site Summary or RDF Site Summary. The most common is Really Simple Sindication, and is further described here as “a family of web feed formats used in web syndication. These are XML based systems for aggregating information from blogs, news and frequently updated websites.”



If this all sounds like a lot of mumbo jumbo to you, I don’t blame you. What this means in layman’s terms is this. Websites are not like paper newspapers or books or magazines. They are dynamic, and can be updated very easily. If you are interested in the content they offer and want to keep up and be informed when something new is added, then you want to get “home delivery” in the same way as you might do with the New York Times.

RSS feeds are delivered into a special kind of “inbox” very similar to an email inbox, meant only for feeds (or updates in content) from websites. The question is, what does this special inbox look like, what is it called and where can you get it?

***IMPORTANT*** Why would you want to have RSS feeds? Why should you care? If you visit websites that are regularly updated, like news sites and blogs, and if you subscribed to all of them via email, your inbox would soon be filled with updates from these sites and most of your “real” email from friends, family and colleagues would be lost in the shuffle, drowned out by this web content. The thing about web content is that, though it may be very interesting and even highly relevant to what you do in life, but it is not addressed personally to you, whereas your email is. It will always be more of a priority to read your own mail before you read what people on the web are doing. So the great advantage of having a feed reader is that your email will continue to hold your private messages, your feeds will all be gathered together (or aggregated) in one place, and whenever you are so inclined and have some time you can browse them and read the ones you’re interested in.

RSS inboxes are called FEED READERS, they are free and there are many different ones available. Google offers one called Google Reader. In order to use Google Reader, I recommend taking the following steps:

• Create a Google account
• Make Google your homepage
• Create an iGoogle page and make THAT your homepage
• Add Google Reader to your homepage as well as other things
• Subscribe to a blog
• Start enjoying the convenience of getting feeds without clogging up your email inbox!

In the next post I will begin a series of short videos in which I will go through each of the steps mentioned. Stay tuned!

Tagged as: Aggregator, Feed Readers, Gmail, Google, Google Reader, IGoogle, RSS