RSS Syndication
Posted by Russ Ray on March 21, 2008
Actually, there’s a redundancy in that title. RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication”, and whenever you’re on a web site and see that funky orange icon to the right, you know that web site syndicates its contents. Most often you will see these on blogs (blogs, short for weblogs, are online diaries… you’re reading one right now!).
However, with the explosion of the blogosphere (which is a fancy way of saying that people spend too much time at work reading and writing on blogs), I guess people got tired of having to waste time visiting 60 blogs during the day and only wanted to know when there was new content to view.
So, we introduce RSS, which (in fancy technical terms) uses XML-tagged feeds that RSS aggregators and feed readers use to display syndicated content.
The non-geek explanation is that RSS readers periodically check the feeds of the blogs and web sites you subscribe to (you can get RSS feed links from your favorite web sites) and see if new content is available for viewing. When a web site or blog syndicates an RSS feed, there is a file that it continually updates in the XML format (which is like the HTML format you see in most web pages). When something is new, it lets you know, and then you can read the new content without having to go to the web site.
The reader I use is Google Reader, which I chose because it is web-based and less intrusive than other aggregators. Some RSS readers are actual stand-alone programs that you have to install, and you end up getting a lot of pop-ups and interference from them during the day. Since I generally read my syndications at work (during break times, of course), the web-based route just worked better for me. Your mileage may vary. You may also be able to subscribe to RSS feeds via the IE7 or FireFox web browsers, however I don’t use either much so I can’t speak to the performance of either.
Adult learners are, by nature, very busy people. If you want to know when this blog gets updated without having to get on here 60 times a day, then subscribe to the feed using the link at the top of the right-hand sidebar and just visit when you need to. If you need help setting one up, just give me a holler during class. And, welcome to the blogosphere!
