What is RSS? This is a very common question and I thought it might be worth making a page to describe RSS to help those who don’t know much about it.
The Kraken Designs blog has several ways that you can subscribe, but the most common way is through our RSS feed.
What is RSS?
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a technology used to keep track of your favorite websites without the effort of having to visit each one individually.
Most people used to bookmark their favorite websites in their browser and manually return to them on a regular basis to see what had been added, but RSS turns this process the other way around where the website lets you know when there is new content. In general this saves you time and helps you get the news feeds very quickly.
How to Use RSS
Use an RSS Reader – The first thing you’ll want to do if you’re getting into reading sites via RSS is to get an RSS Feed Reader.
There are many free readers out there, but I would suggest Google Reader from personal experience. If you don’t like that you can also try Bloglines, another decent reader. The best part is that it’s free.
These readers work much like email. When you subscribe so various feeds you’ll see unread entries from sites you’re tracking as bold. When you click on them you’ll see the latest update and be able to read each post in the feed reader.
Subscribe to Some Feeds – there are two places to look for a site’s feed:
- On the Site (if you look on most any blog you can find a little orange buttons that count the amount of readers on the site or they will say: RSS, XML, ATOM, and sometimes a few others), but generally it will be the button you saw at the begining of this post)
- On Your Browser (When you surf on a site that has an RSS feed, you will ushally find a link to it on the right hand side of the address bar where you type in the websites URL. Generally it will look like the button you saw at the beginning of the post or it will say RSS)
You Can Also Subscribe by Email
Many sites also allow you to subscribe to RSS feeds via Email as well, if you don’t like using a reader.
On the Kraken Designs blog we understand that not everyone likes to use a reader, so we have provided an option for you to subscribe via email by clicking the button on the top of the sidebar. You can unsubscribe any time you want and your email will be kept private and not used for any purposes other than to send you updates.
A Video to Further Understanding of RSS
I hope this page has given you a better idea on what RSS is. Thanks for reading.