Whats RSS?

RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication,” and is a popular way for websites to syndicate their content. When you subscribe to an RSS feed, you can receive that content as soon as it’s published, without the need to visit the website. Subscribing to an RSS feed is free.

Is it like email?

Yes, RSS is similar in many ways to email. Like email, you can subscribe to the content you want and have it sent directly to you. However, RSS has several advantages over email. You don’t have to provide any personal information (like an email address) when you subscribe to an RSS feed, and you don’t have to go through a complicated process to unsubscribe from a feed–unsubscribing is just a matter of deleting that feed. In short, RSS is safer and easier to manage than email.

How do I read an RSS feed?

To read an RSS feed, you’ll need to use a program that can receive and read RSS. Some email programs (such as Thunderbird) have the ability to read RSS feeds built-in, and there are programs available to add RSS-reading capability to other email programs like Outlook. However, many people use programs called RSS readers to manage and read their RSS subscriptions. There are many RSS readers available for all computer platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.), and many of them are free. One of the more popular free RSS readers is FeedReader; there are many others available to try out, as a Google search will reveal. If you don’t want to use a separate program to read RSS feeds, there are several web-based services that let you read and manage RSS feeds online using your normal web browser. Bloglines is one such service.

So how do I subscribe to an RSS feed?

Subscribing to an feed is fairly straightforward:
  1. Set up a program to read RSS feeds (see “How do I read an RSS feed?” above for details on doing this).
  2. Create a new channel in your RSS reader program with the URL of the feed to which you’d like to subscribe. Each RSS reader program has its own way of subscribing to a feed, so follow the instructions for whichever program you’re using.
  3. That’s it! Once you’ve created your new channel, you are subscribed to that feed and will receive new content automatically whenever it is posted.