What Are That Orange Button And RSS Feed?

February 19, 2009 | In: Internet

If you browse the web fairly regularly undoubtedly you have come across the orange button or a phrase like “subscribe to RSS feed” and either just ignored it or wondered what it means but remained puzzled. You might even press the button and see an even more confusing screen asking you what feed reader to use. It can all be very daunting yet RSS feeds are designed to make life easier.

What is an RSS Feed

First off RSS stands for “really simple syndication” or basically a really simple way of having new content from a website sent to you rather than having to repeatedly revisit a website to find new content.

(graphic thanks to How to explain RSS the Oprah way)

Say you visit various news, financial, sports and entertainment sites and blogs in a day trying to stay on top of what’s new you can cut your time drastically by having the new content sent to you rather than going back to the websites throughout the day to check for new information.

Getting the content

Now, you need to get the content from the websites you would normally visit. Most sites offer two ways.

The first is to have it sent to you in the form of an email. Some sites add a lot of content in a day such as news sites where you will receive an email for each new story. If you subscribe to my blog by email you will only get an email once a day no matter how many articles I post.

The second way to receive new content is by using a feed reader and there are two different types of feed readers. The first is web-based, accessed through you web browser. The second is through software on your computer.

Web-based Feed Readers

Google Reader: This is one of the most common web-based feed readers and frankly in my opinion the best. You need to sign up for a Google account which will also give you a Gmail address and access to a lot of other Google services. As you collect feeds you can organize them into folders for easier access.
Netvibes: This is both a feed reader and a great start page. Create tabs for different areas of content. Add widgets that show current weather, your mail and calendar. Definitely worth while to check out.
Bloglines: I haven’t used Bloglines so if you are using it please leave a comment to let others know its features.

Desktop Feed Readers

Microsoft Outlook 7: If you are using Outlook 7 then you can subscribe to feeds and have them show up in Outlook. I found when I did this it seemed to slow down Outlook so I’m not a big fan of using Outlook as a feedreader. You may have a different experience and it is an easy way of getting current content delivered especially if you use Outlook a lot.
FeedDemon for Windows: A full-featured feed reader for Windows users.
NetNewsWire for Mac OS: For you Mac users here is a desktop feed reader.

Subscribe to Simple Tech Today

Now that you are schooled in RSS feeds it’s time to subscribe to some. Why not start with Simple Tech Today either using a feed reader or by email.
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