Myette.org

In the top right corner you may have noticed an orange button that says RSS.  “RSS” stands for “Real Simple Syndication.”  A few people have asked about it so I’ll try to give a brief description here on what it is and why you might want to use it.  

Websites publish lists of updates, called “feeds,” that indicate when new content has been posted. It is a way online for you to get a quick list of the latest story headlines from all your favorite websites and blogs all in one place.

The easiest example of this is right here on this website.  If you wanted to see if Erika posted any new entries to her blog you could click on the link to her page above and go to her page to check.  Or if you look to the right you’ll see a feed of the 3 latest entries.  Any time she makes a new entry it will automatically appear in the feed to the right without me having to do anything.  Same with the photo gallery and video feeds.  

Suppose you have 50 sites and blogs that you like to visit regularly. Going to visit each website and blog everyday could take you hours. With RSS, you can “subscribe” to a website or blog, and get “fed” all the new headlines from all of these 50 sites and blogs in one list, and see what’s going on in minutes instead of hours.

That one place where your RSS list is created is called an RSS Reader, and it gathers all the headlines from all the websites and blogs you have subscribed to.  To “subscribe” to a website or blog’s RSS feed simply means that you are telling that website or blog, “Yes please. Send me your story headlines.” It’s like subscribing to a magazine or newsletter. Instead of getting a magazine or email, you will just get a list of headlines sent to your RSS reader. If the headline looks interesting to you, all you have to do is click on the headline and you’ll be sent to the whole story.

How can you use feeds?  You may never use feeds, but if you read more than 2-3 websites on a daily basis it might be worthwhile to check into a “feed reader.”  The easiest ways to use a feed reader is with an online service like igoogle, myyahoo or google reader.  You can set up these programs to monitor this website and all of the other websites you read on a daily basis.  On one screen you can see updates from Myette.org, cnn.com, nytimes.com or any other websites.  Just look for the RSS symbol that shows you can subscribe to a feed from that page. 

And if all of this seems like too much work, just ignore the RSS button and enjoy the feeds I’ve built into this website.  Happy Feeding!