"What is RSS? RSS SOS"

Since I have been writing a lot about RSS feeds, I figured it might make sense to explain exactly what an RSS feed is and why it's so useful.

First, RSS stands for REALLY SIMPLE SYNDICATION. What does that mean? Well, RSS Feeds are a subscription. Think of it as subscribing to a magazine or an e-newsletter. RSS simply brings information to you. In order to access RSS you need an RSS Reader. In my opinion, the best RSS reader is Google Reader which is free and can be found at www.google.com/reader.

An RSS reader is an application, which can either be located on your desktop or on the web. I like Google Reader because it makes things easy. This application's purpose is to gather all your RSS feeds (this may be articles, updates, or anything else that uses RSS) and display it to you. Then whenever any of your subscriptions are updated, the information will immediately show up on your reader.

Still confused? Let's use an example to explain. Let's say I read the New York Times ever day online. But, let's say I'm only interested in articles which relate to fashion. Well, you can log on to Google Reader and do a search for "New York Times Fashion" and it will display an RSS feed which says "New York Times - Fashion." You'll notice a description of the feed as well as a "Subscribe button." If you click subscribe, you will instantly get any New York Times articles that are fashion related. Each time a new fashion related article is added, it will get sent to your Google Reader for you to read.

Once you add several "feeds" you will find that RSS is a great way to have all the stuff your interested sent to you (in one place) instead of going to several different websites to see if they updated anything that you are interested in. Basically, RSS is a huge time saver and makes it easy to not miss out on anything.

Finally, you should know that RSS Feeds are used for all sorts of things... RSS is used on Craig's List, for newspapers, for magazines, for blogs, for wikipedia, and much much more.

The best way to learn about RSS is to play with it. So go to Google Reader and play around. Hit the Search or Browse Button and type in some of the things your interested in. Hit subscribe (you can always unsubscribe if you don't like it) and find out how useful this tool can be.