Get a good feed
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Illustration by Matt Forsythe
Where is Good’s RSS feed?
What is RSS?
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It really is a simple idea: RSS tells you when new content appears on websites you like.
The content on most websites changes often, but exactly when it changes is unpredictable. Your favourite blog might be updated three times in one day, then not at all for four days. Some people forget to update their websites for weeks at a time, so after a while we forget to keep checking them.
Most people have a few websites they like to keep track of, but visiting all of them every day can get pretty tedious—and time-consuming. RSS is a much better way to find out about new content.
How does RSS work?
A website sends out a list of its new content in something called an ‘RSS feed’. People who are interested in getting updates about the new content subscribe to the feed.
Thousands of websites provide an RSS feed. They are most popular with sites that add new content often, like blogs, magazines and news websites.
How do I read RSS feeds?
You read RSS feeds with something called … a feed reader. Simple, see?
Web-based feed readers are great, because you can log in and check your feeds from any computer, anywhere. The three most popular online feed readers are My Yahoo (my.yahoo.com), Google Reader (google.com/reader) and Bloglines (bloglines.com/myblogs).
If you already have a Google account (such as a Gmail email address), it’s probably easiest to choose Google Reader. If you have a Yahoo email address or a Flickr photo account, go for Yahoo. And if you have neither, Bloglines is an excellent choice.
Whichever feed reader you choose, just head to its website and create an account.
Adding feeds to your reader
Most sites use a small orange icon to show that they have an RSS feed:
If you want to keep up with new content on a website, click its RSS icon. You’ll be taken to another page where you confirm that you want to add the website’s RSS feed to your feed reader. Click on the ‘add’ button, and voila: updates from that site will automatically appear on your feed reader page.
To read your page, just head to the URL for whichever reader you signed up for. Log in, and you will see a list of the feeds you have subscribed to. You can read the new content right there on your own page, or you can click the link to go to the original site and read it there.
Now, instead of checking 37 sites a day to see if they’ve been updated, you can just check one: your feed reader page. Set it as your homepage, and you’ll be up-to-the minute every time you open your browser.
