“What is RSS?” - I’ve run into this question a lot in the past couple of days so I thought I’d dedicate this post to explain.
RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication.” That in itself is of no help to you but, hey, now you know.
Let’s say you visit a bunch of blogs and news websites on a daily basis. You have to type in each address and scroll down the website to read new posts or articles. RSS feeds let you read the content on those sites without actually having to visit them.
How? Well you’ll have to use an RSS Reader (I suggest Google Reader). Once you have a reader you can click the “RSS” or “Subscribe to RSS feed” buttons on each website. This will connect the RSS feeds from the respective websites/blogs to your reader. So instead of visiting each website individually, you can now open up your reader and see all the new articles and posts from all the websites you subscribe to in one place.
Why would I want to do that? It’s a time saver and you can quickly scroll down and view new content from all the websites you subscribe to without having to actually visit them. Some RSS feeds give you the full article/post in the reader, some others only give you a headline with a link to read the full article on their website.
Should I use RSS feeds? It’s really a personal choice. Some people love them, others aren’t a huge fan. I enjoy using them occasionally but for the most part, I like visiting each website/blog individually. It’s like eating at a restaurant, things tend to taste better when you’re in their environment.
