On your travels around the internet, you have no doubt seen this icon all over the place:
This is the official icon which represents an RSS feed. So, what exactly is an RSS feed?
Really Simply Syndication
That’s right, RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication”. It is sometimes just referred to as a news feed. The word “syndication” kind of gives it away. Let’s look at the world of print newspapers. The New York Times is, like it or not, one of the standard bearers in the world of the press. A lot of original stories are written by the New York Times. Throughout the US, many smaller papers will act as syndicates for the NYT, republishing those articles. This means that the NYT content is portable. Well, the same goes for websites. An RSS feed is a method of syndicating another site’s content somewhere OTHER than the website it was published on.
An RSS feed is a file which is on a web server. The file dynamically changes whenever new content is published on that website. The feed uses a technology called XML to allow the content to be portable. A certain agreed upon standard in the industry dictates how an article’s headline, content, publishing date, author, etc all appear in an RSS feed. This standard means that no matter where the RSS feed is used, other readers of that feed will know how to use it.
Subscribing to an RSS Feed
When you see one of those orange icons above, it almost always means that the website you are on has an RSS feed. Clicking on that link will load up the RSS feed itself into your web browser and, usually, allow you to subscribe to it. When you subscribe to an RSS feed, it means that you can check up on the content of that website any time you want without having to visit that website.
To subscribe to an RSS feed, you need a feed reader. A feed reader is simply a program which can collect and manage a list of RSS feeds you subscribe to. By subscribing to a collection of feeds to sites which interest you, you can quickly monitor the latest and greatest on your favorite sites.
Feed readers come in both online and offline versions. The offline versions run on your local computer, just like your email program. Popular options include:
Then there are the web-based readers. Popular options are Google Reader and Bloglines.
Personally, I’m a big fan of Google Reader. Being web-based makes it portable and easy. You can also access your favorite feeds from your cell phone.
There are a LOT of other good feed readers out there, so if you’re aware of one you like, feel free to post a comment and tell us about it.
Subscribing From Your Browser
The newer web browsers (Internet Explorer 7, Firefox, Safari) support subscribing to RSS feeds right from the browser. The way you know this is possible is that you will see the orange RSS icon up in the URL bar of your browser. You will notice (if you are reading this article on our website) that there is such an icon in your browser right now up next to the URL. This means you can subscribe using what is called “live bookmarking”. Essentially, this bookmarks the latest content from the website you are on. However, what is unique about THESE bookmarks is that they will continually change whenever that site publishes new content. This is what makes the bookmarks “live”.
This is all done using the RSS feed.
I’m not a huge fan of live bookmarks. I would much rather use a real reader to access the feeds and ready everything.
Related Reading
- How to Explain RSS the Oprah Way
- What is RSS? (from ProBlogger)
- RSS Explained for the Blogging Newbie
- RSS Explained in Very Plain English (cool video)
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