Not quite sure what to make of all of those little orange RSS icons out there that ask you to subscribe to them? That’s alright, you’re not alone. Seriously. I’d say that the majority of the web’s community see RSS and Atom feed icons and shrug them off not knowing how useful they are. But if your curious, I’ll explain to you what they are, how they work, and why they’re used. Are you ready to get your learn on?

Well let’s see, logically you would start with what it is, but I’m going to tell you how to use a feed, and what happens when you subscribe first. We all have websites that we visit on a regular basis, and most of us have them bookmarked. But what if that bookmark told you when something new was happening at those websites? Let’s take this image a step further and say what if the bookmark says “Hey, these are the websites that have new stuff going on at them, and I’ve categorized all of this new stuff by website to make it easier to see what’s going on.”

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) allows websites to syndicate their content so readers have easier access to that new content. So, what would you use to actually read the syndicated content? Well, there are a lot of readers out there. In fact, if you use Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Safari you already have one. To use this feature, all you have to do is click on a feed icon, and you’ll end up at a plain-looking page that asks if you’d like to subscribe to the feed that you’ve clicked on as well as which method you’d like to use read the content. The easiest way to do this in Firefox for example, is to subscribe using Live Bookmarks, and tick the box to always subscribe using them. Live Bookmarks work just like I described earlier. When you click on, or hover over any of your Live Bookmarks, it will give you a list of all of the new content published at that website since you had last checked it. Pretty snazzy.

The only question now is when is a good time for you to check the feeds? Do you like to start your surfing by checking your email first? All of the larger free email sites like Yahoo and Google have feed readers right in your email inbox. There are also readers included in email clients like Mozilla Thunderbird and Outlook if that’s your thing. If your the type of person to light up the browser and just get to it (like me), then Live Bookmarks are the best way to check for new content.

So there you have it, a small but hopefully helpful explanation of RSS and what it’s all about. Think of it as a way to build your own custom magazine and then subscribe to it. That, and it’s super convenient. Hey, if you liked this article - why not subscribe to this feed? Thanks for reading!