Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a lightweight XML format designed for syndicating news and the content of news-like sites sharing headlines and other Web content.

Publishing your RSS feed is just the beginning. RSS, really a mini database containing headlines and descriptions of what's new on your site, is a natural for layering on additional services. In addition to displaying your news on other sites and headline viewers, RSS data can flow into other products and services like PDA's, cell phones, email ticklers. and even voice updates. Email newsletters can easily be automated with RSS. Even more compelling, affiliate networks and partners of like-minded sites (say a collection of Linux sites) can harvest each other's RSS feeds, and automatically display the new stories from the other sites in the network, driving more traffic throughout.

RSS is a family of web feed formats, specified in XML and used for Web syndication. RSS is used by (among other things) news Web sites, weblogs and podcasting. The abbreviation is variously used to refer to the following standards:

• Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0)
• Rich Site Summary (RSS 0.91, RSS 1.0)
• RDF Site Summary (RSS 0.9 and 1.0)

Web feeds provide web content or summaries of web content together with links to the full versions of the content, and other metadata. RSS, in particular, delivers this information as an XML file called an RSS feed, webfeed, RSS stream, or RSS channel. In addition to facilitating syndication, web feeds allow a website's frequent readers to track updates on the site using an aggregator.

How do I start using RSS feeds?

In general, the first thing you need is something called a news reader. This is a piece of software that checks RSS feeds and lets you read any new articles that have been added to them. There are many different versions, some of which are accessed using a browser, and some of which are downloadable applications. Browser-based news readers let you catch up with your RSS feed subscriptions from any computer, whereas downloadable applications let you store them on your main computer, in the same way that you either download your e-mail using Outlook, or keep it on a web-based service like Hotmail.
Once you have chosen a news reader, all you have to do is to decide what content you want to receive in your news reader, by finding and subscribing to the relevant RSS feeds.

If you click on the button you can subscribe to the feed in various ways, including by dragging the URL of the RSS feed into your news reader or by cutting and pasting the same URL into a new feed in your news reader. Most sites that offer RSS feeds use a similar orange RSS button, but some may just have a normal web link to the feed.
Some browsers, including Firefox, Opera and Safari, automatically check for RSS feeds for you when you visit a website, and display an icon when they find one. This can make subscribing to RSS feeds much easier. For more details on these, please check their websites.

How do I get a news reader?

There is a range of different news readers available and new versions are appearing all the time. Different news readers work on different operating systems, so you will need to choose one that will work with your computer.
Example RSS Feed

• RSS Reader (www.rssreader.com)
• RSS Bandit (www.rssbandit.org)
• Sharp Reader (www.sharpreader.net)
• Mozilla Thunderbird (www.mozilla.com/thunderbird)
• Microsoft Outlook (www.microsoft.com)
• Nuparadigm RSS Screensaver (www.nuparadigm.com)