What is RSS?

Read stuff, simply. RSS is a really useful technology with a really stupid name. People occasionally refer to it as a “feed”, by the the feed icon symbol, or by the technical term “Really Simple Syndication”.

What does it do for me?
It is like having all of your favorite websites send you a postcard when they are updated for you to peruse at your leisure. If you enjoy receiving postcards, you’ll probably like it. Instead of visiting every website to check for updates, RSS will warn you of fresh content. Like Phnomenon, RSS is all about freshness.

So how do I “subscribe” to this “RSS”?
To read RSS, you need a RSS reader. An RSS reader gathers all of the feeds that you want to be fed in one place. I prefer Google Reader because it is simple (and Google pays me money) but other popular readers include My Yahoo or Bloglines. The new versions of Firefox and Internet Explorer also have their own readers.