If you are a blogger, then you are almost certainly familiar with the principles of the RSS technology, which is also called a feed (from the English feed - food, delivery, channel). And, no doubt, we have long understood how beneficial this technology brings to you personally. It is the number of subscribers on the Feedburner counter that is often considered the main indicator of the popularity and respect of a blog. If you are a reader (or a future blogger) and are not yet familiar with the mentioned technology, then you might be interested in learning about its main advantages and conveniences.
How can RSS technology be useful?
Think back to a few of your favorite sites or blogs that you visit regularly. There may be several reasons for this. News sites offer timely, and most importantly, easily accessible information about what is happening in the world. Professional magazines and blogs introduce special content. Friends' diaries tell about events from their lives.
How is the process of finding new information on your favorite sites? You should download each of them and look at the headings to determine if new information appears on them. At the same time, if the site has not been updated in the last 24 hours, you will simply waste time loading it. In addition, you will have to spend time organizing browser bookmarks or (even worse) keeping the addresses of all your favorite sites in memory. Basically, you are doing mechanical work.
RSS technology is revolutionizing the way you receive updated content. By using it, you will no longer have to worry about surfing, loading additional windows in the browser and making sure that nothing new has appeared. But you will receive all new articles on a special site (or program) called a reader (from the English read - read).
Once you subscribe to the RSS feed, you will direct the stream of updates just to your home. From now on, you will not be looking for new articles, but they will find you. And instead of visiting dozens of sites and blogs, you will need to download a single site or program and get all the updates that have appeared during your absence.
Plus, by subscribing to RSS, you only get useful information. You do not need to load the entire site on your computer, which means:
- you save traffic;
- you don't see annoying banners, pop-ups and other ad junk.
And further. Thanks to RSS technology, you can immediately see which articles have already been read and which have not yet been viewed, and also see how many unread articles you have left. All this is impossible if you use the usual method of loading pages.
How to subscribe to RSS
In order to subscribe to RSS, you first need to choose a convenient reader. There are many alternatives. But the main difference is whether the reader works over the Internet or through a separately installed local program. The well-known services belong to online readers: Google Reader, Bloglines, My Yahoo, Yandex. Lenta, RSS. I. UA, etc. Local programs that you can install on your own computer include, for example, Mozilla Thunderbird, FeedDemon, News Fire and others. It is also worth noting that almost all modern browsers are able to work with RSS feeds today: Internet Explorer 7, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Maxton and others.
After registering in the online reader or setting up a local RSS syndication program, you can proceed to the second step. Namely - adding your favorite sites and blogs to your reader. When you visit any blog, you will almost certainly see the orange RSS logo there. Click on it - and you will find yourself on the subscription page. The most common ways to subscribe to RSS are listed there. Select the reader in which you previously registered and the subscription is completed.
If your chosen reader is not among the options, or the subscription page was displayed incorrectly (there is some incomprehensible code in front of your eyes), then just copy the address of this page and paste it to the reader manually. Repeat the operation for all sites and blogs you want to track content.
Registration is over. You can enjoy the benefits of RSS syndication
