Web101: RSS Feeds

I know you love this blog. Here you are, after all. You may picture me slaving over a hot laptop all night, scouring the internet for all this fun stuff... but no. In fact, the news is delivered to my laptop as it's published.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a format for delivering regularly changing web content. Many news-related sites, weblogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS Feed to whoever wants it.

RSS solves a problem for people who regularly use the web. It allows you to easily stay informed by retrieving the latest content from the sites you are interested in. You save time by not needing to visit each site individually. (WhatisRSS)

There are two options for how to use them every day:

1. Bookmark a feed, either in your bookmarks toolbar or your normal bookmarks folder, so you can glance at the list every now and then, or
2. Use an RSS feed reader like Feeddemon (PC), NetNewsWire (Mac), Reeder (iPhone) orViigo (Blackberry). These options allow you to download your feeds ahead of time, browse articles wherever you are, and save any you want to go back to later.

Here's my magic bumper humanitarian policy fun feed to get you started. Enjoy!