What is RSS and what should you do about it? RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication or if you are adventurous it could stand for Rambunctious Slicing Sounds or Red Salmon Sandwiches or Random Silly Stories (as is the case many times here at WTDA). So there are many wonderful uses of RSS, but we will only focus on one today due to time and length and that’s all I feel like addressing. Perhaps in another session we will devote more time to the subject.
I find that one of the best uses for RSS is not having to check a gazillion sites each day. Let’s say you actually have friends. Let’s also say that you have lots of friends and they all have websites or blogs or are news reporters or are constantly updating their twitter status. Let’s also say that everyday you get tired of going to each blog or website to see what they are saying. You really want to stay up to date with what they are doing or else you will no longer have any friends. You need to be involved. Along comes RSS.¬†
Really Simple Syndication is basically a simple feed of the latest blog, news, or status of a website. So if you have something to read the feed with, then you can consolidate all of the feeds into one spot. Then all you have to do is check your feed reader to see all of the content from all of your sites or your friends sites. Nowadays most browsers have feed readers built in. So for example, I use the Safari web browser and have a bookmark on my toolbar that says RSS. It looks like this :
 
That picture is an example of one of my RSS feed grabbers that I use. So that way I will know when any of those blogs or sites update their content. AND I can read it right there without visiting the site. See the number on the right of the name? That is how many new updates there are to be read. Quite handy huh. All you have to do is find a website’s RSS feed and bookmark it in your reader (in my case a folder on my toolbar).
So there you have it. I simple and easy way to use RSS for the everyman… and everywoman. As you will notice, WhatToDoAbout.com also has an RSS feed right here! Also it is up in the right hand corner where it says subscribe to RSS. Just in case you were ever wondering what that was, well, now you know. We also have handy updates via email which, as I said, are handy. These are different from the WTDA Weekly where I send you a featured WTDA along with some silly commentary or banter. Happy RSSing.
