Wednesday 30 April 2008

A request for help

I wonder if you can help me out. I regard myself as "technologically competent" but this RSS stuff totally mystifies me. Can any of you tell me what is RSS? What does it do? What is the point of it? Is it worth adding a "RSS feed" to this blog and if I do, what difference will it make?

I tried googling "RSS" it but it still makes no sense to me. Could someone please explain it to me as if I were a 5-year-old because I honestly have no idea. I tried asking my friends about it but they're all as clueless as I am.

Thanks in advance.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

You already have an RSS feed! All Blogger feeds do. In fact I read this article in my feed reader.

So, for a non technical explanation: Signing up to a RSS feed is like getting a subscription to a website. If you use a 'feedreader' (like Google Reader) you get either the opening of the article (with a link to reading the full article as normal on the website) or the full article. RSS is great, as you can subscribe to hundreds of websites, have new articles 'delivered to you' and be able to read them without clicking through to the website.

Sorry if this doesn't help or is wrong.

Dr Grumble said...

I read this in Google Reader. You should try it.

Chris said...

If you use IE 7, you have a reader already

Anonymous said...

The best resource I've found on this is a quick video from the nice people at Common Craft. (I have no idea who they are, but it feels a lot like having a good buddy sit down and catch you up on something you've been meaning to ask about for ages...)

Anyway, it's here.

RSS in Plain English
http://www.commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english

Dr Michael Anderson said...

Thank you everyone, when I get a chance, I shall do a bit more digging.

Anonymous said...

Hi Michael,

1- From the google page, sign in

2- Click my account

3- Scroll down to 'try something new' and click 'more' at the bottom

4- In 'Communicate, show & share' click 'Reader'

5 - Now you are in 'reader', click 'add subscribtion (Bottom left)

5- When the ULR little window opens, write a favourite ULR; for example, http://www.thejuniordoctor.blogspot.com/

Now you have subscribed to read your own blog

6- Add as many other subscribitions as you want, blogs, newspapers, anything to make your own list

7- Next time you sign to your google account, 'reader' will appear, click it and it will tell you if any of your subscribitions have been updated, ie, if you have posted something new, you will be able to click and read it without having to visit the site itself. Same for all your other subscribition, they will all be in 'reader' and you can click each one of them without having to go to the relevant sites.

You can also choose to 'share' items, like in Dr Grumble's :-)