What is RSS and why do you want it to help you research?

July 23, 2021 0 Comments

Are there blogs and websites that you visit frequently to check for updates? Wouldn’t it be great to receive these updates?

You can do this with a technology called RSS.

What is this? It appears as a funny orange icon on a website you are visiting. Represents an RSS feed. Depending on who you ask, RSS is an acronym for Really Simple Syndication, Ready for Some Stories, or Rich Site Summary.

Next to this little button there is usually an invitation to “Subscribe to this feed”. When you click on the link, you may find yourself looking at a lot of computer code that you may not understand.

What you are seeing is a computer language called XML, similar to HTML. All you need to know is that this is the language used to connect what you are reading with a link to your computer and any updates to the content.

The advantage of RSS is a time saver. Instead of scouring websites for updates or weighing another Google search, all you have to do is check your desktop’s RSS folder or open your RSS email alert.

You can choose and sign up for all the sites you want to receive updates for if they offer you the option to “Subscribe to this feed.”

The first thing to do is install an RSS “tool” or a “feed reader” on your system.

There are four types of feed readers to choose from:

Desktop Power Readers: With a desktop reader, you have an icon that sits on your desktop. Desktop readers to choose from include AmthetaDesk, RSS Bandit, or BlogBridge.

Browser Feed Readers – Some browsers offer extensions that provide this functionality. Popular readers like Firefox Live Bookmarks and Internet Explorer 8.

Email feed readers are easy to use. All of your feeds arrive in your email, so you will need to be configured for this. Mozilla Thunderbird, Newsgator Inbox, or Google Alerts. You can tell these readers how often you want to receive ads.

Another popular option for those who use their smartphones more often than their computers is the mobile feed reader. Yahoo, Google and AOL offer the option to receive alerts.

The best way to start is to choose and install a reader on your system. Once you have it in place, go to a website or blog that you visit frequently. Most likely, the site has an RSS icon on the page.

Click on the icon, choose where you want this information to live, such as a folder in your reader or, in the case of Google alerts, it will appear in your email.

If you are a fan of blogging, there are several ways to find the blogs that you like. You can go to Technorati (http://technorati.com/) and do a blog search by typing your topic. Technorati probably has the most extensive list online. You can also go to Google’s blog search and search for blogs in their database. Almost all blogs have the RSS option available. By linking to the feed, you will be notified every time there is an update.

You can also limit your search if you are not interested in an entire site, but only in certain topics. Most sites will offer RSS feeds for various segments within the site. Another way to limit your search for a topic is to enclose the phrase in quotation marks. This is a handy way to limit any search across all search engines. For example, if you are a sports enthusiast and you like a certain soccer team, you may want to refine your search to “San Francisco Giants”, not San Francisco Giants. Without the quotes, your feed or search will spread the words and pour an ocean of information into your lap, most of which will be about everything but the San Francisco Giants.

Happy hunting.

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