What is RSS?
Do you want to keep up to date with the latest posts on the Egyii Blog? The easiest way is an RSS feed.
What is RSS?
RSS is a technology that is being used by millions of web users around the world to keep track of their favorite websites.
In the ‘old days’ of the web to keep track of updates on a website you had to ‘bookmark’ websites in your browser and manually return to them on a regular basis to see what had been added. This is painful and a lot of work if you have a lot to track.
RSS Becomes Your Digital Librarian
What if you could tell a website to let you know every time that they update? In a sense, this is what RSS does for you.
RSS flips things around a little and is a technology that provides you with a method of getting relevant and up to date information sent to you for you to read in your own time. It saves you time and helps you to get the information you want quickly after it was published.
RSS stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication’. Many people describe it as a ‘news feed’ that you subscribe to.
People find the ‘subscription’ description helpful. It’s like subscribing to a magazine that is delivered to you periodically but instead of it coming in your physical mail box each month when the magazine is published it is delivered to your ‘RSS Reader’ every time your favorite website updates.
Even non-technical savvy people can use it. At first it may be a little strange to make the change from bookmarking to RSS but once you get started you can’t stop!
How to Use RSS
Get an RSS Reader – The first thing you’ll want to do if you’re getting into reading sites via RSS is to get yourself an RSS Feed Reader.
There are many feed readers going around with a variety of approaches and features – however a good place to start is with a couple of free and easy to use web based ones like Google Reader - www.google.com/reader
Google Reader works like email. As you subscribe to feeds you’ll see that unread entries from the sites you’re tracking will be marked as bold. As you click on them you’ll see the latest update and can read it right there in the feed reader. You are given the option to click through to the actual site or move onto the next unread item – marking the last one as ‘read’.
The best way to learn how to use either Google Reader is to simply subscribe to some feeds and give it a go. Google Reader has helpful help sections to get you up and running.
Find Some Feeds to Subscribe to – Look for the On Site Subscription
Over the last few years you may have noticed a lot of little buttons and widgets appearing on your favorite sites and blogs. Here is what you should be looking for:
Or in some instances, such as The Egyii Blog, it will appear as follows:
RSS
Now all you need to do is to start subscribing to some BLOGS. Please comment if you find this helpful.
Trip Allen and James Irvine, The Egyii Team, Singapore
