What is RSS? – Simple Explanation Of Really Simple Syndication

By Raj | Nov 24, 2008

While browsing over a number of web sites and blogs, you would have noticed an orange square icon with white radio waves, displayed in several sizes, variations of the basic one as shown below or some orange icons with RSS/XML/Atom/Feed embossed on them.

Do you know what they represent? Have you taken effort to know what it is? Some of you might be knowing that it is something called RSS! But what is RSS?

What is RSS?

Okay, the expansion of the acronym is “Really Simple Syndication” or “Rich Site Summary” or “RDF Site Summary.” If you dig deep to know about the basics of RSS, you may come across frightening terms viz., RSS, XML, Atom, Feed, RSS 0.91, RSS 0.9 and 1.0, RDF 0.9 and 1.0, RSS 2.0 etc. All these are different file formats or variants of web syndication and don’t let these terms frighten you from using this wonderful technology.

These are technical names and are in some way associated with the evolution of web syndication technology, and we don’t have to bother much about that. They are more or less the same with the end result. We simply call it RSS!

So what do you mean by an RSS feed in plain understandable language? Illustrate further more.
While I was a newbie on the World Wide Web in the early 1990s, I used to visit those web sites daily that regularly update their content; for eg., those news sites.

Over time, the sites in my portfolio got multiplied that now I have hundreds of web sites and blogs that I’m interested in, with their contents. Now to find out whether they have updated any contents, I have to visit them regularly. Visiting each web site or blog everyday would eat my time (and if the web site hadn’t updated at each time of my visit, I feel urgh!).

Here comes the technological advancement or evolution of the web syndication viz., RSS, to my help. With RSS, I can “subscribe” to a web site or a blog that frequently updates its contents, and get myself updated instantly all the new contents from all of my favorite web sites and blogs in just one go. I can see what’s going on in all those sites in minutes instead of hours without manually visiting each one of them.

It allows me to easily stay informed by retrieving the latest content from the sites I’m interested in. Isn’t it a time, energy, and resource saver? What do you mean by resource saver? Had I joined each site’s email newsletter service, I would have needed great space in my inbox! By the way, by subscribing to RSS feeds, the requested updates are not trapped as junk mail, and I don’t have to give out my email address, hence it ensures my privacy too!

Okay, now I got the advantages, but where do I start from?
For that, the first thing you need have is an RSS Feed Reader or Feed Aggregator. The place where you create your RSS list is called an RSS Reader. Basically, there are two types of feed aggregators available.

A software that is installed on your computer. Free softwares available for this purpose include Sharp Reader, RSS Reader, Feed Demon and Attensa. As a variant of the aforesaid readers, nowadays email client softwares like Microsoft Office Outlook and Windows Live email client are offering feed readers, that is an advantage of two birds at one shot! You can read your emails as well as your feeds simultaneously in one go and no need to clutter up your inbox with feed newsletters.

Windows Live email client is compatible with RSS feed reading

Windows Live Email Client Compatible With RSS

Web based. A number of web based applications are available and I have created links below with their corresponding logos, which you can give a try. You can have a look at more such web based readers at Wikipedia list, Dmoz collection, or News on Feeds’ series of feed aggregators.

I personally use iGoogle and Free Windows Live Mail Client simultaneously. With Windows Live Mail Client, I can access my mails and feeds from my computer and with iGoogle, I can access my feed items from any computer connected to the internet.

Okay, I have chosen my reader, now how to subscribe to feeds?
If you find buttons of your favorite reader like the above ones on any blog or web site, just click on it and it will take it your web-based reader. Just add the feed to your reader and start receiving contents. If you couldn’t find any such button, but just only an orange feed button, right click on it, copy the URL of the feed and add it your feed reader, that’s it, you start receiving feeds.

What to do if I can’t find any such icons of a feed?

RSS icon lighted up in Firefox browser

Nowadays, the latest browsers have inbuilt function to trace and subscribe to RSS feeds. Hence before you start subscribing to feeds, configure your browser to your default RSS reader. For example, in Firefox browser, you can do this by going through Tools/Options/Feeds. While you browse a site or a blog that offers an RSS feed with Firefox browser, the RSS icon at the right end of the URL box glows up. Click on it and it will take you to the feed URL. Choose your favorite reader and click “Subscribe Now.” That’s it, you’re subscribed.

RSS icon lighted up in Internet Explorer browser

Similarly in Internet Explorer 7, the RSS button at the right end of the browser glows up if a web site or a blog that you surf offers feeds. Just click on the icon and it will take you to the feed URL. Click “Subscribe to this feed” and you’re subscribed to your default feed reader of Internet Explorer (Microsoft Outlook or Windows Live or whatever default reader you have chosen.)

If you still are left with doubts, these two videos can be of help; the first one is just in plain language.

The second video is a bit more detailed. (A video by the Information Management and Technology Department of the Peoria Unified School District to help the PUSD community better understand Really Simple Syndication.)

All of my current RSS subscribers might be wondering why I came with this post! I will come up with the reasons for that along with the statistics of RSS subscribing attitude/pattern in my next post.

Tags: basics of RSS, RSS feed reader, what is RSS

3 Responses to “What is RSS? – Simple Explanation Of Really Simple Syndication”

giftchelraj on May 18th, 2009, at 2:18 pm said:

wow…this is really a nice piece of information. i did not realize the real application of RSS untill I accidentally saw your article on this. now i hope to use this daily…thanks for this wonderful tip.

Raj on May 18th, 2009, at 3:21 pm said:

I have hundreds of feeds in my feed reader that I graze through in the mornings after a glance on the local newspapers to keep me updated on what’s happening around me.

I’m a firm believer of “knowledge is power” and to acquire the latest knowledge in this digital world, RSS is undoubtedly the sharp tool.

Juliana on February 27th, 2011, at 3:59 pm said:

Dr.Raj is an amazing teacher! I always wanted to understand the concept of RSS, his explanation is so understandable. I like his blogs on MT..keep up the good work.