The overview

RSS stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication’….which by itself is utterly unhelpful.

RSS essentially allows you to keep all of your news in one place to save you having to visit lots of different websites. Using an RSS reader (which we will discuss shortly) you will be able to get the latest news, headlines and updates from any websites that use RSS almost instantly.

Websites that use RSS will produce ‘feeds’, which are basically chronological lists of their content. These feeds can then be read by RSS readers regularly to see if there is anything new and end up displayed in a nice and simple way for us to read inside an RSS reader. This makes it easy to scan and pick out what we want to read about. An excellent time saving tool don’t you think?

How might I use RSS?

Let me give you an example. If you’re interested (like we are) in web design news, trends and inspiration, you might be tempted to check websites that specialise in those areas every day just in case they’ve published some new content. This is not a particularly effective way of staying on top of things, especially if you want to keep track of lots of websites. So instead you can set yourself up with an RSS reader that will manage it all for you in one place. Then, each morning/day/night, you can open up your reader and instantly see which websites have posted some new content – almost like an email inbox. I’m sure you’ll agree this is much more efficient than visiting 30 websites blindly every day.

What RSS reader should I use and how do I set it up?

This depends on how much you want to do with your RSS feeds. There are lots of different types of readers out there, some are free like Google Reader, MyYahoo and Bloglines. Others you have to pay for, such as NewsGator and Attensa. Some are standalone readers that work inside your browser and others you have to download to your desktop. If you’re just getting started with feeds and aren’t too bothered about having every possible type of functionality, then I would suggest going for a free online one. I recommend Google Reader as this is what we use at White Heat Design. Simply visit the website and sign up for a Google account if you don’t already have one.

Now you’re ready to start adding your feeds. You’ll have to go to your favourite websites to begin with to find the feeds. Look for the well-known little orange icons. These have become so recognisable now that people have started to design some quite funky looking ones. Examples are shown below.

Once you click on these items you will be given a choice of readers through which to subscribe to the feeds with. Choose your Google Reader and you’re done! If you check your Google Reader acount now you will see your first feed.

If you need a site to test it on, why not try subscribing to our feeds to keep up to date with our Thoughts? The link is over there on the right at the top – I’m sure you can see it!