Rss

I've only just used an RSS browser - Shiira - for the first time today, and having browsed through old posts and seen that this was a major requirement for people considering various browser options, I have to say I'm perplexed.

I'm not really understanding the full benefits of RSS. What exactly is it and what can it do? So far, all I've seen is as follows - I go to the NY Times website, click the little blue RSS button, and I get a list of stories in a simple text-only standardised type of format. But what more can it do? Is it possible to build my own personalized RSS page that updates with only the stories of sites I choose it to?

Explain!

 

Here's a basic overview:

You can use RSS to keep up to date with blogs, news sources, etc. by clicking the button and updating it. I've made a folder named "RSS" where I keep all of the feeds I bookmark, and then I've categorized them into folders depending on what they are. Safari can tell me when there's a new article to read, and what folder it's in once I open the RSS folder.

You can do this with most blogs with comments too. Many blogs have a comment feed for all of their comments, or just comments for a particular article. When you want that, you should look around on the actual page and click the link there, since the blue button in the address bar will probably be for the whole site. It's pretty easy to keep up with the comments on a site with RSS.

You can also set multiple feeds as your home page. When you have a folder of feeds that you'd like to make your home page, open the folder (in the menu bar, etc.) and click on View All RSS Articles. This "mashes" them all together and from there, you can choose to display them however you want (past seven days, by the new ones, etc.).

Hope that helps out a bit.
-Chasen

 

Another way of utilizing RSS is to have a separate app (i.e. not Safari of Shiira) handle your RSS feeds for you. The most popular of these apps is NetNewsWire (there's a free version at the bottom of the page). The app essentially looks like Mail, but it's for RSS feeds. This setup works if you have a lot of RSS feeds, or if you like to look at the feeds for each site separately.

Essentially the purpose of RSS is to save time by checking the feeds of websites all at once to see if there's anything new, rather than going to each site individually.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(protocol)