Beginners’ guide to RSS
RSS feed is the hottest trend in web 2.0. They are essentially an easy, effortless way for all of us without the time or energy to visit all of our favourite sites regularly.
Drats, this icon is everywhere. What the hell is it anyway?
The technicalities
RSS is an abbrieviated form of Really Simple Syndication. Self descriptive, eh? It is an XML file that the sites publish on a specific URL(or more), to which you can subscribe, and receive updates. Now-a-days, news sites, sports sites, tech sites/blogs and just about every other site provides RSS feeds. (Note: Some nasty sites, mostly sports/news sites provide you a heading and a teaser of their content, so that you can click through to the sites when you find something interesting, stay away from them).
The benefits
Instead of having to visit every single one of your favorite sites, you can subscribe to their RSS feed and read in the comfort of your reader. Managing content also becomes easy. You can classify the feeds as important, leisure and rarely(that’s what I do), and sort through the first two groups regularly and the third group on weekends.
How do I…
Reading an RSS feed is very easy. There are two types of readers - online, and desktop.
Online readers reside on the web, and you have to use your web browser to log in to it and start reading. Its advantage is that you can access it on any computer with a net connection. If you are a multi-computer user(office, home etc.), this is your best bet. However, it requires constant net connectivity, so if you are short on bandwidth, you would be better off with the next type of reader.
Offline/desktop readers reside in your computer as a program, and works like one. You can update your feed when online, and read it later online/offline. The advantage is obviously that you save a lot of bandwidth and net connectivity time. As for disadvantage, you cannot use it on multiple computers, so if you use a single PC regularly, this is your best bet.
Here is a list of online and offline readers, arranged in order of my preference -
Online:
Offline:
All of these are free options, so use them and stick to the one you are most comfortable with.
To subscribe…
To subscribe, thou shalt clicketh on icons ontop the site
Most blogs/sites feature a prominent RSS icon at the top, usually in sidebar or header. Clicking on the icon takes you to a page with various subscription options. If your browser(Opera/Firefox) is configured to be used as a reader, you will be subscribed automatically. It would be better to copy the URL by right-click > Copy link location, and pasting it in “Add Feed” option in the reader.
Now that you’ve got a low-down on RSS feeds, why not subscribe to TechZilo RSS feed, or Blog Creativity RSS feed(a blog about blogging, SEO and WordPress) ?
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