What Is RSS
Do you want to keep up to date with the latest posts on the GreenHealthClubs.org weblog? We have a number of ways you can subscribe to this site and receive updates. The main one our readers use is our RSS feed.RSS is a technology used by tens of millions of people around the world to keep track of their favorite websites. It lets you receive and organize updated content automatically. So instead of you having to go to a website, the website comes to you.
In the ‘good old days’ of the web you needed to ‘bookmark’ websites in your browser and manually return to them on a regular basis to see what new content had been added. But this takes a lot of time and effort.
The problems with bookmarking
- - You as the web surfer had to do all the work
- It can get complicated when you are trying to track many websites at once
- You miss information when you forget to check your bookmarks
- You end up seeing the same information over and over again on sites that don’t update very often
RSS Makes Getting Fresh Content Easy
What if you could tell a website to let you know every time that they update? In a sense, this is what RSS does for you.
RSS stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication’. Many people describe it as a ‘news feed’ that you subscribe to.
Using RSS is like subscribing to a magazine that’s delivered to you periodically. But instead of new issues coming to your physical mail box each month they get delivered to your ‘RSS Reader’ every time your favorite website updates.
How RSS technically works is a lesson best saved for another day. The key today is for you to understand why it’s good and how to use it.
It’s Not Complicated To Use
You don’t have to be a tech geek to use RSS. Once you try using it and see the advantages - you probably won’t want to go back to bookmarking. The best way to really “understand” and see the advantages of RSS is try it out for yourself.
How to Use RSS In Three Easy Steps
Step 1. Get an RSS Reader - The first thing you’ll want to do if you’re getting into reading sites via RSS is to hook yourself up with an RSS Feed Reader.
There are many feed readers going around with a variety of approaches and features - however a good place to start is with a couple of free and easy to use web based ones like Google Reader and Bloglines. Either one will do if you’re starting out.
Both of these feed readers work a little like email. As you subscribe to feeds you’ll see that unread entries from the sites you’re tracking will be marked as bold. As you click on them you’ll see the latest update and can read it right there in the feed reader. You are given the option to click through to the actual site or move onto the next unread item - marking the last one as ‘read’.
The best way to learn how to use either Google Reader or Bloglines is to simply subscribe (that’s step 2) to some feeds and give it a go. Both have helpful help sections to get you up and running.
Note: other options to tracking websites that you might already be familiar with include using pages like MyYahoo, MyGoogle and MyMSN.
Step 2. Find Some Feeds to Subscribe to - there are two places to look for a site’s feed:
- On the Site
- In Your Browser
On Site Subscription
Over the past few years you may have noticed a lot of little buttons and widgets appearing on your favorite sites and blogs. Little orange buttons, ‘counters’ with how many ‘readers a blog has, links called RSS, XML, ATOM and many more.
They come in all shapes and sizes. Here are a few you might have seen:
There are plenty more - but any time you see any of these buttons or anything like them it means that the site you are viewing almost certainly has a feed that you can subscribe to. In most cases it’s as simple as either copying and pasting the link associated with the button into your RSS Reader or clicking the button and following the instructions to subscribe using the feed reader of your choice.
Subscribe In Your Browser
Most Internet browsers now have the ability to find and subscribe to RSS feeds built right into them.
When you surf to a site you can usually tell if it has an RSS feed by looking in the right hand side of address bar where you type in the site’s URL.
Here’s how it looks for GreenHealthClubs when you’re using the Firefox web browser:
See the little blue “RSS” icon on the right hand side?
Click that and you’ll be locating Green Health Club’s RSS Feed.
Other web browsers may display something simaliar or an RSS symbol that looks like this orange icon:
Other modern browsers will have similar icons.
Step 3. Just click the RSS Icon or link and your reader does the rest. To quickly and easily subscribe by clicking these icons you’ll want to set up your browser to do it with your feed reader of choice as by default they will probably subscribe you using the in-browser reader. You can do this by going to the ‘preferences’ to your browser and choosing ‘Google Reader’ or ‘Bloglines’ etc as your feed reader.
Once you’ve done this and have subscribed to a few feeds you’ll begin to see unread items in your Feed Reader and you can start reading.
Don’t want to Use an RSS Reader? Email is another Option
If the above explanation all just seems a little too complicated for you then please don’t worry. Many sites also enable you to subscribe to RSS feeds via a more familiar medium - Email.
Here at FitCompany we know that not everyone is into using RSS. So at the top of our right hand sidebar there’s a field where you can enter your email address. You will then receive Green Health Club’s latest posts and content via your e-mail inbox.
You can unsubscribe at any time and your email will be kept private and not used for any other purposes than to send you content updates.
We hope you give RSS a try. It’s an exciting technology and find it can be a useful tool for saving you time and keeping up to date on the information you care about.