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We’ve been asked this question a couple of times lately, mostly from clients getting onto the web for the first time, so here’s our definition.
RSS stands for ‘Rich Site Summary’. An RSS feed delivers a variety of web content in one format, directly to your computer. By using an RSS feed, you are in effect receiving the latest, most relevant content from a series of websites without needing to go to each site individually.
To give an example, a website concerned with trading stocks and shares might have an RSS feed on its home page. The feed would deliver content from websites the website’s users would find useful to access. This could include news bulletins from the main news stations, live updates on the stock market, YouTube clips on how to trade and blog posts recently published on whether or not punters should trade on certain shares.
All of the information mentioned above is information that the website’s users will benefit from reading or watching. It is content that they would otherwise search for on the Internet, but having the RSS feed saves them having to do so.
The added benefit of an RSS feed is that thanks to the use of a standardised XML format, any type of content can be streamed, whether it is a web page, a video clip or even an audio file. Likewise, a person does not have to subscribe to lots of different company emails in order to stay updated. They can, if they have an RSS reader, instead simply click on the ‘feed’ icon on the company’s RSS feed or website in order to receive updates.
An RSS feed is read using a piece of software which is called an ‘RSS reader’. There are different RSS Readers to choose from. Popular models include FeedReader, which works for Windows, and Amphetadask which can be used on Mac, Linux and Windows. When you have chosen an RSS reader, you then need to find the websites you wish to receive updates from. Simply browse different websites and find the icon labelled XML, RSS or RDF near the RSS feed. Then either enter the URL of the particular RSS you wish to have updates from into your RSS reader, or click on the orange RSS icon displayed on the feed’s page.
There are different ways to find and manage RSS feeds. If you have a modern web browser, such as Internet Explorer or Safari, it will automatically check for feeds. Should you use different devices, installing a web-based news reader may be a more practical solution. A web-based news reader can access any RSS feeds you are subscribed to on different computers, phones or tablets and then amalgamate all the information into one central feed, which you can then access from any one of your devices.
RSS feeds display information in a timely and relevant way. They allow you to access content from different websites and stream said content to one point of contact. It is simple to download an RSS feed reader and very quick to add RSS feeds from different sites. Before you know it, you will have all the latest news and information you desire at your fingertips.
