What is RSS? What are RSS feeds? RSS stands for: Really Simple Syndication.
RSS feeds are a mix of information, peace of mind and high efficiency.
RSS helps us to rationalize our infos acquisition process, to manage the famous informations overload.
There are two ways to use the Internet: either in or out. You either receive emails or surf the www.
RSS is in between.
You 100% master your infos acquisition process.
You update and read your feeds whenever you decide to.
You subscribe to a feed, or unsubscribe, in a snap.
The subscription act is also called RSS aggregation.
What is great with the RSS protocol is that you can keep in touch with your poles of interest, in real time, whenever you want to, within one software, either browser or reader.
Below, the most frequent RSS icons that you may find on websites, in order to subscribe to their feeds:
These allow you to aggregate and read any valid RSS feed in Google, Yahoo, MSN and other portals such as Facebook:
These, to aggregate either within your browser(s), or within feeds readers, also called aggregators, which are special softwares (see below):
Most browsers allow you to subscribe to any well formatted feed.
The image below shows a well formatted feed's output, that you can subscribe to in your browser(s).
This one shows a feed's output which isn't well formatted (missing *.xsl file).
You can't subscribe to it in your browser(s), but in a reader:
You may find many free RSS readers on the Internet, you can use the field below to do so.
After installing your reader, depending on its type, you either can copy, in your browser's address bar, the URL of the feed you want to subscribe to, and paste it in a special import box of your reader, or select the URL in the address bar of your browser, and open your reader's import dialog box, which will import the URL of the feed automatically. You'll just have to validate. Most of the time feeds files formats are:
the-feed.xml the-feed.php More about RSS on Wikipedia.
Most readers allow you to create folders and sub-folders, in order to organize your feeds, bookmarking process alike. All of them get an "Actualize" functionality, which updates all your feeds at once. Sometimes your aggregator refuses to import a feed's URL, it means that there are errors in its XML language. A warning informs you.
Et voila, your in touch, in real time, with all your favorites websites which provide RSS feeds. As said above, you decide. You're not overwhelmed by bunches of emails. You will love it. Only 7% of the "internauts" use this fantastic RSS functionality. Please, raise this stat!
Do not forget to export your feeds list regularly (most of the time in *.opml or *.xml files formats) onto an USB key, an external drive, as well as your regular bookmarks. They are your treasure. Whenever you unfortunately experience a computer problem, you'll be able to restore them all.
RSS XML RSS
