So I’ve gotten many questions as to what an RSS feed actually is. The cool cats over at How-To Geek just posted this awesome explanation, including how to use Google Reader to subscribe to RSS Feeds of your favorite websites. Here’s a quick explanation:
RSS allows web sites to push out content in a standardized format commonly called a feed. This feed can be subscribed to by anyone with internet access and an appropriate tool called a feed reader. Accessing these RSS feeds is free and many popular and robust feed readers…are also free.
For an example of an RSS feed, you can check out my very own RSS feed which shows all of my posts in chronological order. You can use a feed reader like Google Reader to subscribe to my feed. Whenever I post a new article, it shows up in your Google Reader for your viewing pleasure.
I use the ever popular Google Reader to subscribe to 44 feeds (at the time of this writing) and it only increases as I find websites that post relevant material to my interests. I actually had an idea for a website that did this before I learned about Google Reader. Could you imagine visiting 44 websites daily to catch up on their newest articles? That makes me cringe at the thought! I absolutely love Google Reader and it makes sure I don’t miss an article that my top websites post. Sure, I go through hundreds of feed items a day, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
- Ben Beadle