How RSS Can Help You Save Time and Money

RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, is an XML-based format for content distribution on the Internet. It’s an excellent way for Internet users to get updated news content and online articles -- the stuff you want -- without having to search for it.

Basically, when a new article is posted or a change made to a webpage, RSS keeps track of the changes and delivers them to you. RSS feeds are most often attached to text, images, podcasts and video, but they can be used with any document (word processing and spreadsheets) that has content that changes.

Anyone who has been frustrated at the time it takes to find what you want on the Internet can appreciate the time-saving feature of RSS. If there are web pages you visit daily or regularly – let’s say you always read the front page of The New York Times and your best friend’s weblog – RSS eliminate the need to check for updates. Every time something changes on the page, it comes to you. RSS always shows the most-recent changes.

To view RSS feeds, you need an RSS reader (also called an aggregator), which trolls RSS feeds across the Web to regularly update content. All are pretty easy to use, offering users the chance to read, e-mail, save or clip content with a click of the mouse. There are many free, web-based readers, all which compile and update feeds, all which allow anonymous access to their feeds from any computer with Internet access. For heavier users, there are desktop, application-based readers that offer more features.

One of the original uses for RSS is the ability to create a personal newspaper with new content updated every morning. Beyond that, on the short list of things RSS can do is make it easy to search for and organize information about a particular topic, keep up with your kid’s homework, track packages, find cheap airfares or follow e-Bay auctions and sales. You can get your horoscope, search for jobs, read your favorite comics, get software updates, keep up with other people’s schedules and follow calendar listings for your favorite clubs and venues. You can see what others are saying about your favorite sports teams or keep up with what others are saying about your favorite (or least-favorite) celebrity. All without surfing through pop-up ads, slow downloads and poorly navigated sites. RSS saves time. It’s as simple as that.

You can access RSS feeds on mobiles device and many cell phones or via e-mail as well as on a computer.

A feed is similar to a bookmark in a web browser. If you subscribe to the feed of the New York Times home page, for instance, you will always see the latest content from that page in your reader. You can create special search feeds for specific words or phrases, which can be extremely useful for research, or clip content you find for later use or sharing with others. Put another way, a feed is a website that changes.

In your web reader, each feed shows new articles, or posts, in a list. The reader allows you to read the article on its original page, mark the article as read, rate it, e-mail or IM it to friends or clip it for future reference in a folder.

Most online news and information sites publish RSS feeds, and more are being added every day. Part of the popularity of weblogs, or blogs, is that the software that creates them have RSS capability, which allows friends and other people to subscribe and share content.

There are various ways. You may see the big orange symbol on web pages, which is a link to the RSS feed or a page of feeds. Copy the url (the web address) of the feed you want and paste it in your reader to subscribe. Many pages offer one-click subscription to well-known aggregators like NewsGator, Bloglines, Rojo and Google Reader. The latest versions of the popular web browsers Internet Explorer and Firefox and Apple’s Safari now incorporate RSS feeds into their bookmark programs. If your bookmarks are showing updated content, you are subscribed to RSS feeds and you don’t even know it.

No. E-mail is a two-way communication channel. RSS merely keeps content current. However, they both work together, and you can receive RSS content through e-mail.

Podcasts are digital files recorded for downloading through RSS feeds for playback. RSS allows users to download podcasts to computers or mobile devices for playback at any time.