Posted on December 7, 2005 at 11:51 AM in how-to
Note: The below is an archived entry from Earthling, formerly EarthLink's official blog. The blog itself has been decommissioned and is no longer updated, and comments are trackbacks are no longer accepted.
What's RSS and why should I care?
If you don't know what RSS is, you're not alone. According to a Yahoo whitepaper, as of Fall 2005 only 12% of internet users are aware of RSS. Only 4% have knowingly used it. But if you've used a portal or start page, odds are you've used it without even knowing it.
In simple terms, RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, is the key part of a system for receiving some or all of a web site's content somewhere else. That somewhere else could be a special web site, a part of your web browser, or a separate application on your computer. So far you can't read RSS feeds on the back of a cereal box or on your naked arm, but give M.I.T. some time and they'll make it happen.
So? So if you read a lot of different web sites every day, or even just a few, you might find that knowing about RSS makes your web browsing faster and easier.
When used right, syndication (the second S in RSS) can simplify the way you browse the web, and help you fight the feeling that you can't keep up with all of your favorite sites all of the time. You can treat a piece of web content, like an article or a movie review, as if it were a piece of e-mail. You know how you leave stuff in your inbox until you are ready to read it? RSS lets you do that with articles from web sites.
When used wrong, it can add some stress to your web life because RSS feeds can pile up just like that stack of mail waiting for you when you get back from vacation. And if you get carried away and subscribe to too many RSS feeds, your head can start to hurt from information overload. But this is a pretty avoidable malady.
More and more sites are making their content available in this way. And it's free for the content's publisher and the reader, so any site can do it.
How do I "do" RSS?
There are two ways you can work with RSS -- you can subscribe to someone's content, or you can syndicate your own content, making it available for others to subscribe to. In this entry, I'm assuming you want to know how to use RSS as a reader/subscriber.
There are really only two things you need to get syndicated content, a reader and a feed.
Before you get scared away looking at the length of this article, don't. It's pretty straightforward. Without all of the details, the process is as easy as this:
- Pick an RSS reader and configure it like you'd set up any other application or web site service. If it were a car you'd adjust the mirrors, change the radio station, and put your seatbelt on.
- Find feeds you like and subscribe to them. Look for the orange XML and RSS buttons on sites you like.
- Return to your reader daily instead of going to the sites you've subscribed to. It's ok. They'll forgive you. They can still make money off of you.
Keep reading if you want to know more.
An RSS reader can be:
- A web site that you go to every day to read your stories, like bloglines.com
- A part of your web browser -- if you use Safari, you can click on RSS links and see the feeds within the browser itself
- A separate standalone application that lives on your computer, or PDA device like RSS Bandit
- Or a plug-in or add-on to a piece of software you already have.
It doesn't matter which kind you pick. If you want something that's free to mess around with before you decide what you like, I recommend setting up a bloglines account. You can always get rid of it later.
Each of these work a little differently and have different feature sets, but at heart, they are all designed to do the same thing: You use an "add" or "subscribe" button to choose to receive a site's content via RSS, and then check back later to see what that site has published.
From then on, every time you check your RSS reader, you see all of the stories that site has published, but in more minimal form. Often, you'll just see titles, dates, and a couple of lines of text representing each story. You click the titles to see the full story.
Your RSS reader keeps track of what you've read and what you haven't gotten to yet. So if you forget about it for a week, and then come back to it, everything you missed will be there waiting for you. You can also choose to mark stories you want to go back to, like dog-earing a page in a book. And you can unsubscribe from RSS feeds that you decide you don't want any more. You can also usually keep a list of stories you especially like.
So this becomes a quicker, easier substitute for visiting the 18 sites every morning that you like to look at.
If you've gotten this far, now you probably want to know how to find RSS feeds out in the wild. In many cases, the sites you already read have RSS versions of their content for you to grab. Look for tiny orange buttons that say "XML" or "RSS".
If you're using the Safari browser, a site that has RSS feeds will give you a blue "RSS" button in the location bar to the right of the URL.
In Safari, just click that RSS button and Safari will turn into an RSS reader. It will show you that site's RSS content right there in the browser.
If you're using Internet Explorer, Firefox, or if you don't know what browser you are using, when you see one of the orange XML or RSS buttons:
- Say, "oh, so that's what those buttons are for."
- Right-click it and grab the link it is pointing to ("copy link location" in the popup menu). If you make a mistake and click it instead, that's ok -- you'll probably see some ugly-looking code instead of a web page but that's ok. The ugly code means it's working.
- Now go to your RSS reader of choice. If you are using bloglines, go to www.bloglines.com, log-in, go to your "my feeds" page and click "add". If you are using a standalone reader, open it and find the "add" or "subscribe" button.
- Paste in the URL you grabbed from the orange button. Don't grab all of the ugly code in the middle of the page, just the URL in the location bar of your browser. If it starts will feed://, you might want to chop that part off. Some readers don't like it.
- If the reader asks, confirm that you want to add the feed.
- Kick back and read. You're done. Come back tomorrow. Blab about RSS at cocktail parties.
For more information on how to use RSS, e-mail me or drop a comment on this entry. You might also take a look at one of the many, many, many other sites that have tackled this question in their own ways.
Comments
Eh Dave :) good intro :)
I'll point out that Firefox has the built-in ability to subscribe to RSS feeds, but i don't find it insanely user friendly. When you go to a site that publishes a feed, in Firefox, at the bottom-right-hand-corner of the window, you'll notice a very small orange "speaker/broadcast" icon. Click on it, and it'll say "Subscribe to [name of the feed]".
For the Mac users among us, The Apple Blog has a good overview of various news readers as well as various related articles on RSS.
Posted by chris holland | December 7, 2005 2:49 PM
Dave: Are you going recommend one that you think might be better for the smart 14 year olds, and also, can you recommend a site that can explain holograms? Further, I think we ELNKers are overly enthusiastic re: Firefox. I've loaded it for upteen relatives, and they all end up going back to IE, cuz it seems 'easier'.
Jerry
Posted by Jerry Grasso | December 8, 2005 9:53 AM
Chris: Thanks. I've been using Bloglines for a while now, but it might be time to play the field and see other readers.
Update: as of today, still no cereal box RSS reader, but there is a toilet paper dispenser RSS reader.
Jerry: Thank you for your comments. The smart 14-year-olds among us are probably writing their own RSS reader software by now. But if you're all thumbs, the easiest way to get started (on a Mac) is to use Safari. You can keep your feeds in the built-in "News" folder in your bookmarks bar, and it will tell you when they've been updated.
What did Firefox do to you, give you an indian rope burn? It's been nothing but sweet to me. One thing I really like about Firefox is Greasemonkey -- the add-on that lets you add a whole mess of other add-on scripts to it. That probably merits an entry of its own soon.
As for Holograms, the editor of HowStuffWorks once said that there is not a single topic that is too broad or too difficult for a HSW article. Holograms is the one topic that to this day he hasn't been able to write and/or outline.
Posted by earthling | December 8, 2005 9:54 AM
Jerry,
IE still commands a 90% market share in web browsers so it doesn't surprise me users, when introduced, switched back. They use IE at work, it was the first browser they ever used, all their friends are using it, etc…
I think you'll find people that can harness the power of a browser will in short order abandon IE and be willing to adopt Firefox (providing that they don't work for MS). In my opinion it is just a better browser.
Microsoft hopes to narrow the gap between IE and Firefox by introducing 'web feeds' with IE 7.0. I have installed the IE 7.0 beta-version and it’s no real leap forward. It has a couple new bells and whistles but nothing earth shattering.
Opinions everyone has one…
Posted by Travis M. | December 8, 2005 12:18 PM
I hope IE 7.0 fixes the CSS box model implementation. Setting a 99% _width on certain "divs" is getting to be silly.
The key for a successful migration to Firefox is to make the transition nearly transparent to the user.
First, be sure to complete a successful preferences and settings migration. Firefox sorta does it all for you.
Change Windows's default browser to Firefox. What people find hard is to deal with 2 browsers, one that is labeled "internet" and the other, "Firefox". Just make "Internet" point to Firefox and you'll find people don't mind, care, or are even conscious they're using a different browser.
They're just not getting infected with crap-ware, their machine isn't running as slow as it once was.
Forget about introducing them to RSS support in Firefox, or any other whiz-bang feature. Let them browse the web as they always do, without compromising their machines as much, and that's already a huge gain.
Posted by chris holland | December 11, 2005 5:11 AM
Something along the same lines (Firefox or IE) was published yesterday in the Washington Post: Firefox Moves Farther Ahead of the Hunt.
Posted by Travis | December 19, 2005 7:59 AM
We're a bunch of geeks talking shop.
What makes good technology great is the user experience, not how many cool features you can cram in and configure for hours at a time(ala Grease Monkey, NoScript, AdBlock Plus, and the umpteen other 'indispensible' plugins for FireFox).
Not the geek experience.
The end-, "I don't spend 8 hours or more in front of a computer" user experience.
Firefox is excellent to the geek segment, and "sort of works" out of box for everyone else.
IE works with most sites because most sites were designed for it.
I can't tell you how many times I use 'IE Tab' or 'Open in IE' because embedded video (WMV) doesn't work properly, scripts don't work properly, or site optimization is so slanted toward IE, the site just looks wrong. Some call this lazy programming, and perhaps that is true today. However, that WAS good programming at one time, because all anyone ever used was IE (barring the Netscape era).
All end-users ever really want is a product about which they can say, "It Just Works." Geeks, on the other hand, don't mind tinkering around the hood to get a powerful piece of software doing everything they want.
A great piece of software works for both new users and experienced users, and supplies a consistent experience regardless of the user's knowledge.
-Don
Posted by Don RB | January 7, 2006 7:10 PM
Does anyone know which is considered best practice? A button that says XML or one that says RSS? I've seen both used with equal measure...
Posted by bluesonicboy | February 7, 2006 11:32 AM
Another great way to use RSS is from within Microsoft Outlook. "rsspopper" installs as a folder in your Inbox. Click on the RSS folder and all your messages are there and look like e-mail
Posted by Bob | March 26, 2006 7:18 PM
This might me way overdue, but then again i never really got around to reading this entry. I've searched for a quick overview on RSS but never really got around to trying it out. Your entry seems to be a less complicated one, I'll try it out when I get home. As it is I can't try it out here coz I'm still working...
Actually, I just wanted to say thanks for this post and that it really helps... ;p
Posted by angel | January 29, 2007 5:42 PM
Angel: Glad it came in handy. It's actually due for an update since EarthLink's RSS reader -- Reader.earthlink.net has come on line since I wrote this.
Posted by Dave C. | January 30, 2007 11:53 AM
One thing I dont like about RSS, is that my plate always looks full.....I'd like to have the luxury of REMOVING content as I've read it....and not just "mark as read"....I've messed around with Google Reader, and a slew of desktop solutions, but I've not found the perfect solution.
One that comes close seems to be RSSFWD.com...it sends feed updates to me via e-mail, that's all fine and dandy, but now I have an Inbox full of rss feeds...sure, you say make a filter, and a rule to label them "rss"...but then I'd probably forget all about reviewing that "rss" label...lol.
But atleast with rssfwd, I can delete the articles as I read them :)
I just wish other news aggregators would allow that same feature...
Posted by Adam | May 20, 2007 8:18 AM
Adam: It sounds like you prefer the inbox approach. Not my cup of tea, as i find having to keep track of it all like emails adds a whole lot of added stress and maintenance to the process. RSSFWD isn't really a reader -- it's a system for getting RSS literally sent as emails, right? I'm getting Rails errors right now thre, but as I remember it that's how it works. If you're looking for an approach like that in a reader, I think there are actually quite a few options. On Windows, does FeedDemon ( http://www.newsgator.com/Individuals/FeedDemon/ ) work like that? I haven't used it recently, but it looks like it might.
Posted by Dave C. | May 21, 2007 3:48 PM