huiadesign

RSS, subscribe, feedreader explained simply

Posted on 08. Oct, 2009 by Sheryl in All blog posts, RSS subscribe, internet demystified

“What on earth is RSS?” – I hear you say, “and those pretty little icons like the ones on the left (very often orange) that I see on alot of websites and blogs”. Well in actual fact RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is no deep mystery it’s a very useful tool and you’re about to learn why.

Basically RSS is internet technology that allows you to stay up to date with the changing content of a website or blog without actually having to visit that particular website or blog. You do this by ‘subscribing’ via RSS. Now traditionally ‘subscribing’ involves an exchange of money but in this case it’s absolutely FREE – great! Subscribing to a website or blogs content allows you to have complete control over the information you are receiving. You don’t have to cough up your email address or request to be unsubscribed when you’re well and truly sick of being harassed, you can end your relationship with any content feed at anytime, with one click and no-one need ever know. So it’s all very private – lovely…

I have several blogs that I am an RSS subscriber to, they all have info and articles that I love to read about. As I use the Google feedreader I can see the new titles of recently added blog posts automatically on my google homepage.

So….. What is a feed reader? You may already be using a type of feedreader and not even realise it. If your normal internet browser homepage is something like yahoo or msn (and in my case igoogle) then you will notice that these pages have live news feed type content that automagically appears. This means that these pages have RSS capabilities and you can add your own RSS subscriptions to these to stay up to date with the content that you love. There are a number of feedreader options one of the most popular being bloglines so check it out and start subscribing without the fear of spam, virus attack or phishing by using RSS.

I have an RSS subscribe link on the bottom right, if you click on that it will take you to my ‘feedburner’ and from there you can choose which feedreader you would like to use. I know it probably sounds a bit complicated but if you experiment by doing you will soon get it sorted, and if you don’t then ask I’m more than happy to help!

Oh yes, almost forgot – the ‘pretty icons’ top left and left are the standard RSS icon so now when you see one of those lurking on a webpage you will now know whether to click it or not. Some blog publishers will also boast the number of feed subscribers they have under the icon like the one on the left – I don’t show mine because I have hardly any and I’m hoping this article will con you into subscribing : ) (just kidding).

Tags: feedreader, RSS subscribe, what is RSS