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Help me understand RSS- What's so great?

zub3qin

zub3qin

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Apr 10, 2007
1,315
4
I am having difficulty understanding what exactly RSS feeds are and examples of why I would want to use them.

I understand the concept i think. You click some link and you get a summary of the headlines on one page, and then you can click the individual stories to get the more detailed version. But how is this any better than just going to the regular homepage?

Is there some use of RSS in reading forums?

Is the advantage that you can click the button at the top of firefox (currently labelled "Latest Headlines") and you get a dropdown of the RSS feed links without actually visiting the page?

Help me! Am I missing out on some neat-o cool feature by not using RSS?!


Thanks!
 
RSS is nice when it's coupled with an RSS reader, a program that retrieves the list of headlines once in a while and shows you what's new.

I've never understood why people would want to use it in a browser, myself.
 
I've just started using it. In the past I was visiting various sites that updated with various stories – some like Boing Boing that updated a couple of times per day, and some that updated more sporadically, like once every week or every couple of days. In the past I'd click on all these 20 or so bookmarks just to see if they'd been updated (and often they hadn't been) try and work out what was new on each site and so on, whereas now they all just feed into Safari, and I can open it up each day, let them all load in the background (whilst using Camino to read MR and the like) and then read everything that's new.

I'm sure everyone uses it differently, but that's what I've found useful.
 
RSS lets you have all the headlines, posts, whatever from several sites all in one place. You don't have to view one site's headlines at a time, readers typically allow you to mix and match so that you can see what's new all in one shot. It lets you skip a pile of front pages and go straight to the interesting bits.

It can also be handy for things that aren't updated regularly (say, announcements about a product you use), so that you don't have to keep checking their site yourself to see if anything's happened.
 
zub3qin said:
I am having difficulty understanding what exactly RSS feeds are and examples of why I would want to use them.

I understand the concept i think. You click some link and you get a summary of the headlines on one page, and then you can click the individual stories to get the more detailed version. But how is this any better than just going to the regular homepage?

Is there some use of RSS in reading forums?

Is the advantage that you can click the button at the top of firefox (currently labelled "Latest Headlines") and you get a dropdown of the RSS feed links without actually visiting the page?

Help me! Am I missing out on some neat-o cool feature by not using RSS?!


Thanks!
Click to expand...

If you don't visit more than one site per day or at any given hour then RSS is of no use for you. I personally hit at least 7 sites a couple of times per day and it would be annoying to open a browser, and open 6 or 7 tabs, and refresh them every 3 hrs or so. With an RSS reader I subscribe to each site, and set how often I want to check each site, and the reader does this job for me and lays them out in an email-client-like layout.
 
Lau said:
I've just started using it. In the past I was visiting various sites that updated with various stories – some like Boing Boing that updated a couple of times per day, and some that updated more sporadically, like once every week or every couple of days. In the past I'd click on all these 20 or so bookmarks just to see if they'd been updated (and often they hadn't been) try and work out what was new on each site and so on, whereas now they all just feed into Safari, and I can open it up each day, let them all load in the background (whilst using Camino to read MR and the like) and then read everything that's new.

I'm sure everyone uses it differently, but that's what I've found useful.
Click to expand...


So I frequent Macsurfer.com and Macrumors forums. Are these sites useful with an RSS reader? DOes firefox have a good rss reader?
 
OP, I've merged your duplicate threads. For future reference, please do not create duplicate threads. Thanks.
 
devilot said:
OP, I've merged your duplicate threads. For future reference, please do not create duplicate threads. Thanks.
Click to expand...

I originally placed this in one forum, and then tried to move it to another- but didn't know how. Sorry!
Is there a way to edit a post and MOVE it to another forum?

Thanks.
 
I'm absolutely addicted to RSS.

I read roughly 130 sites a day, and RSS makes it possible for me to breeze through them 100x faster than I could otherwise. Of course, RSS does enable me to subscribe to tons of feeds that I may or may not read, so you really need to mind what you subscribe to.

In general, though, if you only read a few sites a day, RSS might be overkill for you. YMMV for sure.
 
I use RSS to be (almost) instantly notifed of new Craigslist listings that meet my search requirements. The program I use is called RSSPopper and it sends me an email with the listings that turn up using my search terms. Very handy for getting a steal on a good used Mac. Bought a pretty much brand spanking new Mac Pro 2.66 for $1750.
 
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