I am often asked the question, “what exactly is RSS”? So, I thought I would put together a post explaining RSS and how you can use it in your organization.
What is RSS?
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and simply put it is a format that websites use to publish information. People often refer to RSS in terms of a “feed.” When a website that is using RSS updates their page, it sends out a “feed” to the internet saying that there is new information available. Before RSS was available, you would have to go out to a website to see if there was an update, if there wasn’t one, then you would have to come back later and check again. This wastes time. Now image if you have 5, 25 or 50 favorite websites or blogs that you check often for updates! Imagine how much time you would waste. RSS allows you to “subscribe” to these feeds so you don’t have to return to the websites to see if there is new content. All you need is a receiver.
Think of it this way, there are hundreds of radio stations that you can listen to in your car. Radio stations send out a signal and you tune in and listen or if they aren’t playing the song you like you go to the next station. Now, out of all of those radio stations you select 5 of your favorite and program them into your radio. So, you are “subscribing” to the radio signal or “feed” of your favorite stations. Then next time you get in your car all you have to do is press a button to see if the station is playing something you like, if not then you can just press another channel. RSS and the Internet work the same way.
Websites are the radio stations of the Internet and all you need is a receiver or in this case an “aggregator”.
RSS Aggregators or Readers:
An RSS Aggregator is a tool that allows you to receive Internet feeds in a single location. Just like your car radio that aggregates all of your favorite radio stations, an RSS aggregator collects all of the information from your favorite websites and brings it to a single location. So rather than going to multiple websites to see if there is new information, you can go to a single page to see if there is new information from ALL of your pages.
My aggregator of choice is Google Reader. Within a single Google Reader page, I monitor 157 website feeds. If a website has new information, it comes to my Google Reader. If I don’t have time to read it or want to save it, I can simply click a save button to read it later.
In a future post, I’ll show you how to setup your own aggregator and subscribing to feeds.
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