You might not know immediately what someone is referring to when they mention RSS but if you are on the internet frequently, you might of seen one of the orange icons like the one at the bottom of this page.

Rich Site Summary, or Really Simple Syndication (RSS as it is commonly known), is a quick way to deliver updates for websites that make changes to their content. Commonly it is used on blogs, news sites and entertainment pages.

So what does it do? Let’s say you have a conservative 5 different websites that you go to on a daily basis. You are looking for updates, new content and typically go to each of the sites in turn to see if anything is new. YOU are spending YOUR time looking.

Now imagine if you don’t need to look and instead have one central point to go to and see all of the updates from these 5 sites in one area. The updated information is now coming directly to you, rather than you needing to go and search for it. Better? Of course!

Next time you are out at one of your favorite blogs, or informative websites and see the RSS logo (these come in MANY shapes and sizes but should be orange in color), simply click on the icon or link labeled RSS.
the updates is to use a feed reader.

The easiest way to keep in touch with all of this information is with a feed reader. This allows you to grab the feeds from each individual website and keep them all in one place. A good one to look at is the Google Reader. You will need a Google account to login with but they are easy and free to create.

Once you have your reader set up, click on Add a subscription from the top left corner. Either paste in the url you previously copied using the RSS button, or just type in the web address that you wish to start capturing.

Once you have your 5 sites subscribed to, you now only need to come out to one site, your Google Reader. So, now you have more time and can add more sites to review each, helping you stay informed and reading more fun and interesting stories and ideas!

RSS is standard on WordPress, Blogger and other blog tools. Twitter comes with RSS feeds standard. You can also add RSS to your website with some fairly basic programming.

To get a PDF version of this client library issue, click: Issue3

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