There’s a lot of terms flying around in this new age of “social technology”, where companies like Facebook, Blogger, and Twitter are becoming household names. But what do any of these terms really mean and why should you care? That’s what I’ll be explaining in my weekly Tech Talk.
What does “Subscribe” or “RSS” mean exactly?
Our first weekly term is “Subscribe” which is often synonymous with “RSS”. Let’s talk about “Subscribe” first since it’s a word we’re already familiar with (or it’s at least in the English dictionary).
You may have noticed websites that have “Subscribe” on it, or more specifically “Subscribe to this blog” or “Subscribe to this news feed”. What this actually means is that by clicking on that subscribe link or button, you can have any new updates from that website or blog automatically sent to your e-mail (or online subscription reader) as soon as that site is updated with a new post. RSS and Subscribe are the exact same thing, except that RSS is really the technology behind how subscribing works.
RSS, sometimes referred to as a “feed”, stands for Real Simple Syndication. It’s called RSS because of exactly what the acronym means – it’s a very simple way of syndicating images, text and sometimes audio and video. The reason the term “RSS” is still used, even though it’s used in the same fashion as “Subscribe”, is because us nerds like to have our super secret cool language that only we understand (true story) .
Why “Subscribe” and RSS is important.
In the past, the way news or information online has been read was through a process of going to a website, reading the headline, and clicking on the respective article. That method works fine if you’re not visiting more than 2 news sites a day. For those who might visit on a low range of 5 - 10, and a high range of 50 - 100 to keep up with the latest trends in their industry, subscribing is just a more efficient way of getting your information.
Being able to “Subscribe” to someone’s “RSS” removes all the trouble, allowing you to either receive new information via e-mail, or read it in your RSS Reader. Subscribing to an RSS feed allows you to pull the information you want, when you want it, and in a convenient manner. In other words, rss allows the information to be fed to you, instead of having to hunt it down.
Subscribe to our blog via e-mail or RSS feed!
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Tags: feed reader, howto rss, howto subscribe to blogs, rss, rss reader, subscribe, Talk, Tech Talk, what is rss, wilmington
