What is RSS?

Yesterday I wrote about post featuring some funky RSS icons and then someone asked me “What is RSS?”

Sometime I forget that there are a lot of people who don’t use the internet as much as I do. These same people don’t know or understand how they can take advantage of internet and really see how powerful this technology really is.

What is RSS?

RSS mean Really Simple Syndication. Put simply, RSS takes date from websites such as blog posts like this one and converts the data into a format that can be used by a variety of different programs, websites and “readers”.

Google Reader is one such popular tool that reads RSS feeds. Using an RSS feed that you have found from the web, you can ask Google Reader to convert into an easy to read format. Using a service like Google Reader allows you add thousands, if not millions of RSS feeds, so you can read all of your favorite websites from one easy location. You will no longer need to visit each site individually to get the latest updates.

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Mozilla Firefox is a browser that will let you add RSS feeds to a toolbar. When you click on the button it creates, you will see all of the latest additions to your favorite sites. Check out the image to see what I mean.

Using RSS is a great way for webmasters and bloggers to update their fans quickly and easily. For the fans or visitors of a particular blog, using RSS will save you time and make your life just a little bit easier.

Don’t forget, you can subscribe to the Slave to the Internet RSS Feed too!