RSS - The Modern Newspaper

Like a newspaper, RSS (Really Simple Syndication) allows you to stay up-to-date with the latest news by compiling information from many different sources and presenting it in a way that is easy for you to read. You can easily skip over articles that don’t interest you, read longer articles later, or you may even read only the sections that are of interest to you at that time.

RSS Readers only collect information from the sources that you have subscribed to. You no longer have to sift through ‘finance’, ‘politics’, and ‘weather’ to find ‘technology’ and ‘comics’ (or vice versa if that’s what interests you).

Many users may choose to add feeds from their local newspapers and television stations to stay informed about the things that are happening in their community; however, users can also add feeds from specialized sources that are of interest to them.

For example:

• You may choose to subscribe to friend, family, and co-worker blogs to stay in touch with them and keep track of what they are doing
• You can subscribe to company blogs to be informed about new products and services
• You could subscribe to the blog for your kid’s school to be informed about parent/teacher conferences, teacher workshops, and snow days
• You may also want to subscribe to your favorite charity, church, and other NPO (non-profit organization) blogs to be informed of upcoming fundraisers and events

Specialized Uses:

Looking for something?

Whether you are looking for a job, an apartment, or that latest item for your collection, an RSS reader can help you find exactly what you are looking for. While I was working as a consultant and looking for work, I used a feed reader to keep track of the latest job postings in the Denver, Boulder, and Colorado Springs areas. Without an RSS reader, it would have been almost impossible to keep up-to-date with all of the sites that I was using to find jobs.

Stay up-to-date when it counts

As a systems administrator, I need to know when things happen; whether it is a new version of software or a new bug or virus for one of the programs that we use for production. I often subscribe to an application’s blog so that I know ASAP when something new happens. If I were into finance, I would subscribe to the feeds for each of the companies that I had invested in or if I were a teacher, I would subscribe to sites like Curriki for new ideas for lesson plans.

For more information about RSS Readers and how to use them, please visit: http://www.problogger.net/what-is-rss/