Demystifying RSS

RSS, which is an acronym for "Really Simple Syndication," is a huge time saver for people who want to receive updates from their favorite websites whenever new content is published.

How does RSS work? Let's say that there are five websites you follow regularly. In the old days before RSS existed, the only way to know if those sites posted new content was to link to each one individually and visually scan the pages for something new. Not a very efficient use of time, especially when there was no new content to see.

With RSS, you no longer have to go out on the Web to see what's new on your favorite sites – an RSS feed will automatically do that work for you and then alert you whenever new content is posted.

The convenience of RSS is available on any site that displays this icon:

One of the weaknesses of RSS is that there is no single method or "one-click" procedure to subscribe to feeds. In general, here are two popular options:

• On a website or blog with a feed, find the RSS icon or button, right click, copy the link location, and paste the URL into your RSS feed reader, or
• Find the button for the RSS Feed Reader of your choice, click and follow the instructions

A third option is to set up an RSS feed from within Microsoft Outlook. Here's how:

1. On the Tools menu of Microsoft Outlook 2007, click Account Settings.
2. On the RSS Feeds tab, click New.
3. From your Web browser, select the full URL of the site you wish to subscribe to and press CTRL+C to copy
4. In the New RSS Feed dialog box (in Outlook), press CTRL+V to paste the URL of the RSS Feed
5. Click Add, Click OK

For more on the basics of how RSS works, check out the following video:

RSS in Plain English

Additional resources:

Add an RSS Feed

RSS Tutorial

Basic Introduction to RSS Feeds and Aggregators for Non-Technical People