Figure 1 - An RSS Icon

RSS is the more modern, quick way to keep up to date with new content on your favorite sites. RSS is an acronym for “Really Simply Syndication” as of version 2.0. You’re probably saying with blatant sarcasm, “sweet, now I get to memorize yet another acronym to further complicate my life.” More importantly, you’re probably wondering what this means to you and how you can use it to improve the time you spend on the internet looking at things that aren’t pornography. To my knowledge, those sites don’t use RSS, but they should.

Bookmarks Are For the Potentially Arthritic

If you’re viewing this page, your typical internet experience probably involves going to your favorite websites and checking them to see if there is any new content. You might access these pages via a bookmark or favorites list, by clicking a shortcut stored on your desktop, or simply typing in the address of the site directly. If there is new content that interests you, great, but if not, you’ve wasted time and most likely increased your chances of carpal tunnel syndrome and arthritis with all of that extra effort. In this scenario, you are doing all of the work. You obviously hate work, since you’re browsing aimlessly on the internet (possibly while at work), so RSS is probably for you.

In Soviet RuSSia, Web Page Surfs You!

With RSS, the direction in which information is acquired is reversed. Instead of you visiting your favorite sites checking for new content, the sites tell you when their content is updated. RSS is essentially the difference between going to the news stand to buy a magazine, or having Playboy said magazine delivered to your house. RSS is the shark that makes you surf faster. If you don’t use RSS, a shark will most likely come out of your computer and bite off a limb…especially if you use Internet Explorer 5.5.

I Hate Sharks and Would Miss My Leg. How Do I Use RSS?

There are basically two parts to RSS. A reader, and subscriptions. The great thing about RSS is that most sites nowadays have implemented an RSS feed (also referred to by some as a “news feed”), and there are plenty of free, reliable readers out there. For the sake of a consistent example, I’ll explain how to use RSS using Google Reader. Once you’ve selected what reader you’re going to use, you’ll need to create an account. If you’re already using Google’s GMail or other services, you can use this same account with Google Reader. Best of all, this is free, as mentioned before.

Figure 2 - A example of viewing an RSS feed with Google Reader

An example of a Google Reader account subscribed to 2Lincolns is shown in figure 2. As you can see, the interface is designed to be a lot like email in Google Reader. Each reader’s layout is different, but the basic concept is that it provides an interface to organize and view your feeds.

Once you’ve chosen and logged in to your reader of choice, the next step is to subscribe to feeds. Many of today’s websites have an on-site subscription link like the one shown in figure 1. On 2Lincolns, you can see this at the top of the green sidebar, as well as in several other places on the site. Not all sites use this exact graphic, so be sure to look for any area of the site relating to “subscriptions” to find what you’re looking for.

Many modern internet browsers have the ability to find and subscribe to RSS feeds of a site built right into them. If you’re not using a modern internet browser, you should probably upgrade because you are contributing to the depression of web developers. An example of this built in functionality can be seen in the address bar in Firefox, as seen in figure 3. Clicking that orange icon in your browser’s address bar will access 2Lincolns RSS feed.

Figure 3 - RSS feed detection in Firefox

When you click on an RSS feed, then what? It depends on the feed, really. One of two things will most likely happen. You will probably be redirected to a page asking you to specify your reader, and the instructions are pretty self explanatory from there. Some browsers allow you to specify a default RSS reader. Check your browser’s preferences to see if this option is available to you. In some cases, however, you will be presented with the actual XML markup of the feed. If you’re experiencing the latter, don’t worry, you did not break the internet. Simply copy what is in your address bar and use it to add a subscription manually from within your reader. In Google Reader, you can do this by selecting “Add Subscription” on the left side of the page and pasting the feed URL you just copied. If you don’t know how to copy and paste, step away from the computer to avoid further injury.

To subscribe to the 2Lincolns RSS feed, click here.