RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It is, and I quote Wikipedia, “a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format.”

Essentially, it allows you to read recent posts from several different blogs or websites from a single interface. If you’re familiar with LiveJournal friends lists or Tumblr’s Dashboard, it’s something like that. But the scope is wider, because you can “subscribe” to any website that offers RSS feeds.

RSS feeds can be accessed through readers and aggregators that can be downloaded (to be used on your Desktop) or accessed online. To keep up with the blogs that I read, I personally use Google Reader, which is “bundled up” with your Gmail account.

Why use an RSS reader? Mostly for the convenience. The blogs I follow on Tumblr and LiveJournal are easier to keep up with because those blogging platforms collate the updates in a streamlined way. For independently hosted sites, however, it’s a little tiring and annoying to have to click on URLs to check if they have been updated. RSS readers alert you of new postings, almost-real-time, which saves up on time, etc.

It’s super easy. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at yankee@nothingspaces.com.