The internet is being flooded with content every day which has lagged us behind with too much information to avail than humanly possible. Every day there is a new trend or a hashtag circulating that it becomes hard for us to keep up with its pace.
One has to stay informed no matter what, and that’s when people find their ways to stay up to date. Some may refer to social media, while others may rely on websites or search engines for the same.
One such solution to staying informed, that has somehow been left behind is the RSS feed. The RSS feed, in layman’s terms, is a technology that helps you read what you want online.
About RSS
Now the question arises: What is RSS?
Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary is simple text files with everyday basic information such as news, articles, etc.
The content in an RSS is plugged into a feed reader that converts its text files into updates from all around the web. With the growing complexity of the internet, the RSS text files also grew more complex.
All the content they adopted was in stripped down format for compatibility purposes so as to make it easy for all feed readers to load.
Feed readers automatically update themselves and deliver the latest content to your devices.
This helps users to create their own place online where they can find all their relevant things relating to the sites they usually visit and updates they regularly seek.
With the onset of social media, social networking sites have become the go-to places to receive the newest information. All of us have begun to rely on these, and also base our views according to public opinion.
The introduction of news apps has also led to a decline in the use of RSS feeds. Online brands have also taken the highway to social media marketing, which is quicker than RSS. But RSS feeds provide more in-depth information instead of just what the majority likes.
If you want to see a site inside-out, then opt for RSS feeds and you won’t miss a thing. It proves to be a better option if you only want the updates without the intrusion of public opinion on the news.
They are easy to read and update even while you’re offline.
Types of Feed Readers
To answer the question of what is RSS one can say that it doesn’t work without its feeds.
RSS text files require feed readers to make them readable. Feed readers help you to go through the news quickly and in-depth from various providers.
There are various types of feed readers available for free that can be broadly classified into five categories, based on how you read your feeds:
- Web-based Feed Readers: Web-based feed readers allow you to read your feeds within your browser. These are the most convenient readers and easiest to set up.
- Desktop Feed Readers: Desktop feed readers allow you to read all your feed onto something installed in your system, not on your browser. These are for the more tech-savvy users and have more powerful features than web-based feed readers.
- Browser Built-In Feed Readers: Browser Built-In feed readers help you to read on browsers that come with baked-in feed readers. Many extensions and plug-ins are also available which provide this function.
- Email-Based Feed Readers: Email-based feed readers deliver all your news to you via email. The rate at which you want to get these emails can be adjusted by you.
- Mobile Feed Reader: Mobile reed readers allow you to access news through a variety of mobile devices.
Uses of RSS
There are many different uses of RSS which define what is RSS that you will only realize once you start using it for web surfing and other things. Some of these are:
- RSS feed helps you get delivered specialized news alert from your favorite news app.
- You can follow your favorite channel, celebrity, or key phrase from YouTube via RSS feed. All you have to do is drop it in your feed reader through the subscribe tab.
- You can get things you want to buy (ranging from a pen to an apartment) delivered to you via RSS feed. You may even add details and navigate filters to your order. It will help you stay up to date on something that you are willing to buy. Scroll to the bottom of the page and you will find an RSS link on the site where you want to place the order.
- The bookmarking site has an RSS feed that you can subscribe to.
- Any user, hashtag, or featured page can be subscribed to via RSS feed.
- RSS feed helps conveniently deliver recipes and tips related to cooking to your phone. There are various networks that have their own highlights section on RSS which bring the best from those sites to you.
- You can craft your own RSS feeds on job sites if you are looking for one. You can also use their pre-programmed RSS feeds.
- RSS feeds also provide weather updates once you set your location on to it.
- If you own a website, RSS feeds will be of great help to you too because you can then get your updated information to the subscribers quickly by submitting feeds to it.
- You can set up notifications to alert you when new posts come up under a specific category.
- RSS feeds also help you keep up with your podcasts.
- Wherever RSS feed is offered, an update will be sent to you in the form of a notification where you can read the summary or the whole post whenever you get the time.
RSS feeds are an extremely simple and punctual way to keep up with things relevant to your daily life. They help you in getting brief as well as in-depth information about a scenario.
Simply subscribing to the RSS feed will give you all the relevant news and updates from various sites instead of checking back on it again and again daily.
Thus, the use of RSS feeds even today can simplify and organize how you get your content in one go.
