Did you know that, although RSS stands for Rich Site Summary, most people refer to it as Really Simple Syndication? This is because RSS feeds collect updates from sites and publish them in a unified format for people to read. One of the most popular RSS feed readers was Google Reader until this application shut down on July 1, 2013. Since then, several other websites have been stepping up to the plate, hoping to become the next go to application. Here are three ways people typically use RSS.
1. RSS Feed Widget for Websites
Have you ever been on a website and noticed that they have a list of new articles and posts on their page? This is usually the work of an RSS feed widget. In this case, websites use RSS news feeds for websites to update their readers on multiple posts at once. This can be a useful way to keep readers engaged in different parts of the website, rather than navigating away after they finish reading the page. In other words, jump rates are reduced. How easy is it to add RSS news feeds for websites to your page? All you need to do is find the appropriate HTML, and copy paste it in.
2. RSS News Feeds for Your Morning
Now that we are all using the internet, many people read news from multiple websites in the morning. This can often get confusing or tedious, since you have to click in and out of many pages and end up zigzagging through everything. If you use RSS news feeds to deliver your news, then you will get all your news updates in one central location. Popular applications for reading the news include Feedly Reader, the Old Reader, and Digg Reader.
3. Many to Choose From
Not sure what news sites you want updates from? There are many people who know they would like to use an RSS aggregator for news, but are not sure exactly what RSS feeds they want to subscribe to. For this, you can use RSS search engines. When I use one and look for RSS feeds about technology, for example, it suggests to me the RSS feed for CNN technology news, the NYT technology news, and the MIT Technology Review, all of which are great sites for finding the latest tech updates.
What do you use RSS for? Let us know!