What is RSS?
Back when I very first started this blog, I did a very short post about RSS and had a video that explained what it’s all about. Well, it’s been a while since I’ve talked about this and I still get a lot of questions about RSS and what it is. So I figured it was time to go ahead and do another post about it!
Here’s the video by Common Craft that will also explain what it’s all about:
So let’s summarize a little bit after watching that video.
Personal Benefits of RSS
The main benefit of RSS is that it saves you time. If you’re subscribed to a bunch of blogs, whether its by email updates or using an RSS Reader (check out Google Reader at reader.google.com) you can save yourself a lot of time because the new posts are sent directly to you. This is so much better than just going to all the blogs and news sites that you like to read to see if there is anything new.
So that’s the main personal benefit, it saves you a lot of time and helps you to have sort of a personal newspaper.
Business Benefits of RSS
The business benefit of RSS is that it allows your target market and potential customers to subscribe to your blog! Now granted, this doesn’t work for a standard website. It’s really meant for blogs. So consider this as one more reason to consider having a blog for your ecommerce business.
I’m sure you’ve all heard of newsletters before. In fact you’re probably signed up for a couple right now! Well, think of RSS as a really easy way for people to basically sign up for a newsletter. And then the way you connect with and contact those people that are subscribed to you is by simply adding a new post to your blog! You just keep adding content like you should, and those people will be notified of that content.
RSS is a very important aspect of blogs. Another option is to have people subscribe via email, and this can also be handled through companies that manage RSS. I use Feedburner.com for managing my RSS and Email Subscriptions. They will help you to track how many subscribers you have, both through regular RSS and email.
Most blogging software will come with RSS already ready to go. But I’d still recommend that you use something like Feedburner so you know what’s going on.
Anyway, that’s your brief introduction to RSS. Use it and enjoy it!
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This video couldn’t make it any clearer and it’s nice to see RSS going mainstream. It will be interesting to see how much of an effect it will have on both the internet, marketing, and social landscapes over the next few years. Definitely not a force to underestimate.
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Dan Reply:
October 14th, 2008 at 10:33 am
It’s definitely picking up in popularity, that’s for sure. And there are so many uses for it as well!
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Great Video! Thanks a lot for sharing, definitely cleared up RSS for me which is a huge help being new to blogging.
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Dan Reply:
October 15th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
glad it helped! Common Craft does some great videos if you need explanations on things.
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Fantastic video explanation-you can also use something like BlogLines to help organize all your RSS feeds.
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Dan Reply:
October 15th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
BlogLines is good, too. I prefer Google Reader, but there are a lot of other programs out there.
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Yes i have also found RSS useful as you get latest news easily. I am using RSS feed.
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Dan Reply:
October 28th, 2008 at 6:17 am
RSS really is helpful and saves a lot of time. Which reader do you prefer to use?
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Great explanation. Only thing I don’t understand is - why do you think RSS doesn’t work for conventional sites? If a site has some “news” or some content that gets updated regularly, why is it impossible for it to use RSS?
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Dan Reply:
October 28th, 2008 at 6:18 am
The site would have to set themselves up to be able to use it. Most conventional sites aren’t updated in a way that would make sense for RSS, and that’s why they don’t do it.
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THANK YOU SO MUCH! you don’t understand how much I needed to learn more about RSS. I offer it on my site but not feedburner. I see all these blogs with it and just didn’t understand it.
thanx a lot.
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Dan Reply:
October 16th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Glad the video and explanation helped!
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Nice video of RSS really helpful. Explanation is very easy to understand. Thanks.
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Dan Reply:
October 28th, 2008 at 6:18 am
I’m glad it helped!
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This is what I needed, thank you very much
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Dan Reply:
October 20th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
You’re welcome, I hope it helped!
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[...] gute Erklärung für RSS findet sich auch inem Video auf dieser Seite (Englisch). Wer etwas mehr zur Technik von RSS erfahren möchte, sollte sich auf der Seite von [...]
This video couldn’t make it any clearer and it’s nice to see RSS going mainstream. It will be interesting to see how much of an effect it will have on both the internet, marketing, and social landscapes over the next few years. Definitely not a force to underestimate.
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Dan Reply:
October 28th, 2008 at 6:20 am
I think it really helps people keep up on the sites/news they like without having to surf around for it. So it’s a great time saver and news aggregation tool
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RSS is so useful especially if you need to act when stuff happens…
All you have to do is subscribe to the feed and have it act like an alarm clock for your to do list
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Dan Reply:
October 20th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
It really is a cool technology with a lot of good uses. What sort of things do you keep up on with it?
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and will help to gain the back links ???
I know it helps the readers with updated content but i never tried it personally
once i saw the video i feel how important RSS is
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Dan Reply:
October 20th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
well, if other bloggers subscribe to you it very well could help with backlinks as they read your material and decide to quote it.
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What i would love to find is a really simple and easy aggregator that puts all my favorite feeds into one big one. I don’t like google reader a whole lot.
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Dan Reply:
October 28th, 2008 at 6:20 am
there are others out there like bloglines. What is it about Google Reader that you don’t like?
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dental equipment Reply:
October 28th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
it’s just seems so clunky. I would love be able to create aggregate feeds by subject easily. i have not been able to muster up the patience for google reader or bloglines.
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Dan Reply:
October 29th, 2008 at 10:54 am
Yeah, it can be a little tedious at times. So what do you do currently if you’re not using a reader?
I found a great soultion to make my blog’s rss more visible just add your feed url there ( http://www.widgeteasy.com ) and make a post about your widget. I found that tons of my loyal readers add my blog’s widget to their myspace, blog, website.
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Dan Reply:
October 24th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
thanks for the tip, I’ll have to check that out.
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Thanks for the common man description of RSS! I know everyone tells me how it can help me but nobody really explained much to me before.
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Dan Reply:
October 28th, 2008 at 5:36 am
I found that this video really describes it well. I’m glad you found it useful!
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I always wondered about RSS and you made it very clear for me to understand. Thank you.
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Dan Reply:
November 14th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Glad to help!
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Really nice article!
You mentioned some good reasons for using RSS!
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Dan Reply:
November 24th, 2008 at 7:08 am
RSS really is an amazing tool when you think about it. Thanks!
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Feeds are also known as RSS. There is some discussion as to what RSS stands for, but most people plump for ‘Really Simple Syndication’. In essence, the feeds themselves are just web pages, designed to be read by computers rather than people.
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Dan Reply:
November 24th, 2008 at 7:09 am
Thanks for the great explanation Open Innovation. That’s a really simple way of looking at it.
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I totally agree with your thoughts. I am a newbie so your post really helped me a lot. Thank you very much for the very informative post. You really did a great job. Thank you for it.
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Dan Reply:
November 24th, 2008 at 7:09 am
You’re welcome, I’m glad you found it helpful.
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You never closed the deal. I was expecting a call to action at the end of your blog asking people to sign up for you RSS feed.
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Dan Reply:
November 24th, 2008 at 7:10 am
LOL, you’re right, I really didn’t. I should work on that
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I use Google Reader - it is a great way to keep all of you blogs up to date.
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Dan Reply:
December 17th, 2008 at 11:51 am
That’s the reader that I prefer as well. I also like adding some of my favorites to my iGoogle home page.
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i cant live without rss, its a great way to read!
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There are many benefits of having RSS on a website, as you are able to keep your website up to date which can help your SEO has you show Google you keep your website updated. You are also able to provide your customers with up to date information on the latest goings on in your industry.
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Great video and very helpful to explain RSS to those that don’t know-fantastic idea to share!
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A child does not have problems in understanding this video.
Good exhibition.
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Fun and educational for anyone that doesn’t understand RSS.
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Thanks for nice video
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Is there a piece of software or script that could auto create rss from any web page?
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and will help to gain the back links ???
I know it helps the readers with updated content but i never tried it personally
once i saw the video i feel how important RSS is
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RSS allows me to easily stay informed by retrieving the latest content from the sites I am interested in. So, i can save time by not needing to visit each site individually. RSS solves a problem for people who regularly use the web. And one more great news is that the News Aggregator software allows to grab the RSS feeds from various sites and display them for to read and use.
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Is good and important this fact nice for you but something bad and stupid throw too many paper if you know alot about computer system let me see no be stupid. you waste many paper other word many trees
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RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, it is a way to stay updated on many different sites. You need a program like feedreader, which gathers and stores all the different RSS feeds from the websites you want, then displays them in one window.
It’s really handy for people who browse tons of different sites and forums. I use it for sites like Failbooking and such since I don’t bother staying active but still like their latest updates.
Here at excellent information About RSS by text & vedio.
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Google also give high value to sites that have lot of subscribers so it good if you can convince your viewers to subscribe to your RSS feeds.
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ive just implemented rss feed of my site. Just learning about auto syndication,. very interesting. good vid!
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I bet not many people knew about the RSS before.That is a nice explanation with video too.
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I really like your post, it was very informative.nice video!!
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I already watch this video but everyone is right. this is a great video. very well explained.
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Feedburner is a great service, don’t get me wrong but I personally think it is more important to provide an email opt-in box using an email marketing service like MailChimp. It is much easier to market to your list over a long period of time that way.
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The average person does not know what rss is. If your target market consists of young, tech-savvy individuals it’s worth it to provide the option, but if you are dealing with older people who aren’t familiar for the service, you should either explain it to them or give them the option of the email newsletter, just like you have on this blog.
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if you’re reading that many blogs you should be able to come up with some ideas
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Very cool! Thanks so much for posting such information. I appreciate it!
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HI thanks to give the best information about the rss and rss feed This is a very important for the blog and other work This is a grate vedio.
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i keep asking myself what is rss? i always wondered. thay you for explaning. i will use your technics.
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Thanks for nice video
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I would of never figured it out on my own. Thank you so much.
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Even I have never fiigured out…
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Thanks for this article.The big benefit to RSS is that individuals opt-in to content of interest, totally controlling the flow of information that they receive. If the quality of the content in the feed declines, users simply remove the feed from their RSS reader and they will not receive any additional updates from that source. The RSS reader acts as an aggregator, allowing users to view and scan multiple content streams in a timely fashion.
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