RSS Feeds - Basic Introduction

RSS stands for several things, the most widely accepted being Really Simple Syndication. You have probably seen small, often orange, RSS or XML icons on websites. These icons link to that website’s feed. RSS feeds often include the title of the article and a small excerpt or even the whole article. RSS has become extremely popular with blogs since people often update the material.

Using RSS can save you lots of time on a daily basis. Let’s say you visit a list of 5 home based business websites three times a day. Currently, you visit them one by one in your browser, look for a new story and then go on. Going through all 5 sites might take 5 minutes or more if you find a new article. With RSS, all you do is go into an RSS feed reader and you will instantly know which websites have new articles and which don’t. You will also be able to see past entries with RSS. Now, imagine if you wanted to keep tabs on 20 websites. RSS is easily your best solution for saving time.

Here are a list of some RSS readers:
Google Reader (one of my favorites) is like having an inbox for the information on the internet! Also, check out NetNewsWire, RSS Bandit, Lektora, NewsGator, Sage(Firefox Extension) and NewsFire.

More on Google’s Feed Reader. You will have to have a Gmail or Google account for this to work though. Go to the personalized home website and login. Click the button labeled Add Content in the upper left corner. Google already has several feeds from which you can choose, but we are interested in the Create a Section. Click to expand this section and then add the URL of a feed you wish to add then click Go. The section will be added to your personalized page, where you can drag it wherever you want. Click Close when you have added all the feeds you wish.