RSS Feeds, short for Really Simple Syndication, is a way to deliver a new-created website content (Article, Post, Video, Picture, or Audio) automatically to you. It allows people, that often visit websites, to be easily informed by receiving the latest content through RSS feeds; saving them time because they don’t have to revisit the site regularly. Plus, it is more secure because they don’t have to subscribe to a newsletter service and give away their email addresses.
Have you seen this image before? Are you wondering what it is?
This is a typical image that a Website will display to let you know that they offer content via RSS feed.
This is a RSS feeds icon image, you can click it to subscribe to website’s content that can be either text, images, video, or audio.
How does RSS feeds works?
RSS is really simple, once you click and subscribe to a website, the RSS reader or RSS aggregator; checks for new contents (time between checks may vary depending what kind of RSS reader are you using and how it is configured) and downloads them. Each feed or Web feeds could be a full content or a summary information, follow by information of the publisher, dates, or ads; etc.
There are many software and online services that enable you to consume RSS feeds content. Some of them are:
RSS feeds Online services:
- Google Reader
- Yahoo! Reader
- Bloglines
- Feedshow
- Gmail has capabilities for RSS feeds
- …And many others.
Software RSS reader or aggregators:
- FeedDemon
- Juice is a great software aggregator and you can use it to subscribe to RSS videos & audio
The following are not RSS feeds dedicated software, but they have capabilities for RSS feeds
- Outlook from Microsoft Office
- Mozilla Thunderbird
- Internet Explorer from Microsoft
- Firefox
- …And many others.
There is not much to say about RSS feeds, just that they are really simple, great and they are convenient way to consume online content (e.i text, images, video, or audio).