According to Wikipedia, RSS stands for Really Simple Syndiation.
How can something that is supposed to be "really simple" be so befuddling?
I know that RSS is used to feed information to users from sites that update regularly, like blogs, without the user having to go to each individual site.
One can get updates through email, which is what I usually do and an option we offer on this blog. We use Feedburner's email subscription service. Clicking on the link on the bottom of the left column takes you to the Feedburner subscription screen where you input your email address and then type in those funny letters to insure that a real human is signing up. To further insure the security of your email, you receive a confirmation email from Feedburner. Once you click the link in the confirmation email, you are signed up and will automatically get CrexTechs blog updates. How easy could it be!! The down side is that this update comes to you usually the next day. RSS promises much more timely updates.
We also offer RSS through a link on the page (right column under Links). While I maintain this blog, it has never been clear to me how RSS works. And what one has to do to subscribe via RSS. I recently wrote to our Web Guru, Bryan, who set up this blog as well as our website, to ask him how RSS works.
Here is my email to Bryan:
Hi Bryan, I am writing a blog posting about RSS feeds--trying to understand how this works, so I thought I'd write about it. I went to our blog to click the link for the RSS and got code. I was expecting an RSS subscription screen. Am I just dense and don't get how this works or is the code not supposed to be showing up?
From Bryan:
What happens when you click that button is totally dependent on how your computer is set up. (When I hit the RSS button in my browser on the CrexTechs blog it automatically opens in my "feed reader.") RSS is just an .xml file ("code") that has the most recent updates in a standard format that "readers" like Google Reader or NetNewsWire use for updates.
Most browsers these days pull links out and put it in the menu bar, but the link is also buried at the bottom of every page of the blog in the footer information. You'd take that link (or any one like it on the web) and copy and paste it into whatever reader you use to subscribe.
Some sites use a service like FeedBurner to provide a page with more options like this one for Red Rock, but that's a third party thing and can actually make it trickier to figure out how to subscribe if you don't happen to be using one of the readers they support.
Does that help?
Thanks Bryan, it sort of helps, I think. So I have to cut the link and paste it into a reader that I choose. Not sure where I find the reader but when I figure that out, I'll add an addendum to this post!! It's just reassuring at this point to know that you know--it is so good to have a Web Guru!