What Is RSS?

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, and it allows you to subscribe to websites like this one to have new content delivered to you. This means that you won’t have to remember the addresses to all the websites you like, and you won’t have to go looking around on a site to see what’s new. If anything new is added, you can find out within minutes and look at it on your own time. Sounds good, right?

But what is it, exactly? RSS automatically summarizes new content added to websites and transfers it into a “feed.” This feed itself is written in computer language, but a software tool called a news aggregator (included in some web browsers, or available as free downloads) makes them readable by humans and organizes them in one place. You can go to your aggregator and read all of the new content from every website you subscribe to. For a more detailed (and more technical) explanation of RSS, you can visit Wikipedia's article [1].

You probably visit a lot of websites that have RSS. Most news sites do, including Yahoo! News, the BBC, and The New York Times. Most blogs have RSS too, and so do many other websites. You can tell if a website has RSS by looking for this box: . Usually it’s orange, but sometimes it’s in other colors.

So now that you know what RSS is, you want to get it, right? It’s easy. First decide what news aggregator you want to use. Some popular web based ones are Bloglines [2], MyYahoo! [3], and NewsGator [4] and some desktop aggregators are FeedDemon [5] (for Windows), NetNewsWire [6] (for Macs), and AmphetaDesk [7] (Windows, Mac and Linux). Each of those come with download and installation instructions. When your news aggregator is set up, all you have to do is visit your favorite websites, find the RSS graphic, and subscribe to the feeds – it’s usually a one-step process.

And that’s it! Now all new content that you subscribed to will be delivered right to you, and you can read it whenever you have time.