What is RSS?
November 9, 2007 by Ubertramp
Filed under Travel Geekery
You may seen the icons below and the terms RSS, syndication, subscribers, and feeds paraded on many websites. If you’ve ever wondered what the hell it was all about then this post should make it a bit clearer.
In short, it’s a whole new and infinitely easier way of keeping up to date with the latest posts from your favourite sites.
So without further a do, here’s a (very) quick run down of the theory behind RSS feeds (boo!) and how it can make your browsing even easier (yay!):-
So here’s the scenario: You have a handful of blogs that you regularly check when you log onto the internet. In order to read these latest posts from your favourite sites you manually visit each place and look around for new posts.
BUT if on your next visit to that site you click the swanky little orange button that looks something like this 
(it doesn’t matter if its orange, or green, or even brown like our one, they all do the same job) then from that day on all the posts will come to you! Basically, you have just subscribed to their posts. Its free, it’s safe, and there’s no obligation to continue receiving their posts into your internet reader for any longer than you wish. If at some point you now decide that their posts are crappy then you cancel that particular subscription with one click – just as easily as you subscribed, in fact.
Anyway, rather than me harp on about the ins and outs of it, this awesome video by Commoncraft explains what these readers are, how you ‘get one’ and how you can access and read the latest posts from your favourite blogs.
Well, all that’s left for you RSS virgins to do is try it out for yourselves and see how good it is. And what better place is there to start than with our very own feed?!
Hey! Ubertramp! I’m tired of coming to you; from now on you come to ME!
I use RSS and provide feeds for my readers. My biggest problem is finding time to read all my subscriptions. RSS is still the best way to keep up with your favorite blogs and sites.
It totally is. When I found out about RSS and what it can do it opened up a whole new internet world. I just love lazy.
but yeah, the problem now is that I have the same problem keeping up with subscriptions – its all to easy! haha
Thanks Scott, and keep up thegreat work over at hikingtripreports.com
– you’ve got an awesome site there!
Cheers
Nath
It took me a ling while to understand what a RSS feed was and why it is. Now that I have lot of favorie blogs it is a great thing to be able to read them from my reader that way I don’t have to visit them individally everyday. I joined yours as well.
This is a great article, I am going to try to digg it.
Debo – me too. I wondered for ages what the orange button was and then spent even longer trying to figure out what use it was!
Glad I learnt about it though, it makes keeping up with your favourite blogs soooo much easier. Adios!