RSS

I don’t claim to be any sort of expert on RSS, I know some how to use it- I have RSS on this blog, and I subscribe to RSS feeds through Thunderbird, but that’s about it. Luckily though, that’s all you really NEED to know.

Really Simple Syndication. It’s the most common definition for the acronym RSS. However there are a few different things that RSS can mean, but when it all boils down to it, really simple syndication sums it all up, and does the system justice.

RSS is really about making things simple.
Who has time to sift through a stack of sites, loading each page with all its pictures and adds and God knows what else. All we really want is the headline and the content, right? Well RSS gives you just that. By subscribing to a site, through the RSS button your feed reader will be updated whenever the site you’ve subscribed to is.

When I first heard about RSS I thought that it was mostly for blogs, and to be honest, that’s really all I use my RSS for. But RSS can be used for almost anything. You can subscribe to flickr photos, to blogs, to news sites, other photos sites, sites like Digg and Furl, the list goes on.

RSS readers are easy to use, and there are heaps of them out there. As I said before, my preference is Thunderbird, but that’s an email program that you have to download. If you use google, or yahoo, or even msn then they have feeders on their websites. I’ve tried out bloglines before, which is pretty good. The RSS Specifications websites list a stack of readers to try. As does Stephanie Quilao, from Back in Skinny Jeans, and About, has a list as well.
My tip would be that before you set up one of these as your default RSS reader, check out what extra things it does, and what the feed looks like in that site.

Back in Skinny Jeans also explains RSS The Oprah Way, which is worth a read. This picture explains it really well for all the visual learners out there, and is from this site.

So RSS is a way of having everything that you read, whatever it may be, in one easy place.

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