What is RSS?

Imagine getting all the headlines from all your favourite websites & blogs, updates on the latest movies showing, automatic searches, and a multitude of other web info all in one place.

RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, lets you do it – no more clicking from site to site finding out what’s new – it all comes straight to you.

Not every site offers RSS but it has been embraced by most major news sites and especially the blogging community as powerful new way of getting content to users.

The possibilities go well beyond news & commentary – pretty much any information published on the web can be turned into an RSS feed – for instance expect to see Trademe have a “Favourite Search/Category” RSS option in the near future (it’s a wonder they don’t already).

Keep an eye out for these symbols when you are browsing the web – they indicate the site has a feed that you can subscribe to (these aren’t 100% standard so on some sites RSS links might look different).

What do you need?

The key thing you’ll need to access all this is an RSS Reader, or ‘aggregator’. RSS Readers come in many shapes & sizes – and are mostly free to boot! Here’s a quick run down of what’s out there:

Standalone applications to download and run from your desktop:

• Windows
• RSS Bandit
• Awasu
• Feed Demon

• Apple Mac
• NetNewsWire (recommended) – Available as both a free ‘lite’ and a fuller featured commercial version
• NewsFire
• iBlog

Web-based RSS readers accessed through your browser

• Newsgator
• Bloglines
• Google Reader
• on your My Yahoo! or Google Homepage

Some of the latest web browsers even have RSS readers built in…

• Apple Safari
• Firefox on PC or Mac
• Internet Explorer 7

The only other thing you’ll need is the RSS feeds themselves. A good place to start is right here: get yourself a reader and grab our feed from the link on the right.