RSS Explained

RSS = Really Simple Syndication

For most people, it’s not so simple. So, let’s try to resolve this.

Let’s say you are obsessed with the news, so everyday you log on to a bunch of different news sites to see what is new and interesting. If you are only following one or two sites, it isn’t much of a problem, but we are all much more interesting humans. And with RSS, you can easily follow hundreds of sites that interest you.

With RSS, you are subscribing to a “feed” and you use a “feed reader” that listens for updates to the feed. When the site posts updated content, your feed reader automatically grabs the headline, description and a link to the news.

Another benefit of RSS is that you don’t have to subscribe to an email newsletter, so you protect your privacy by using RSS.

Now if the above description lost you, perhaps a little video will help.

Other information about RSS:

• What is RSS? RSS Explained
• What is RSS by Seth Godin
• Google’s News Reader
• NewsGator’s RSS Software: FeedDemon (Windows) and NetNewsWire (Mac)

I’m a fan of NewsGator’s products as they also have an online and a mobile reader which all synchronize together with the desktop readers.

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