Using Rss to Aggregate Information

Written by RSS Feed Icon on May 23, 2013. Posted in Homepage

Once when I was in college, I told my close friend about this sociological news website that I liked. That sounds cool, she told me. I will add it to my psychology rss feed. Rss feed? What was that, and how was it going to be helpful to her? It was not for several months after that, that I finally understood what an RSS was.

What is an RSS? Think of it as something like a social media news feed, except for actual site updates, not things about your friends. Basically, RSS feed lists are aggregating web content tools. They take lists of constantly updating information and display them in a unified format. So, for example, say you do have a psychology rss feeds list that follows six different blogs and sites that deal with this topic. Instead of having to check each site for updates every day, all you have to do is check the rss feed and it will tell you if there has been an update, and what the update is titled.

Adding an rss feed to your website or creating one for personal use is easy. All you have to do is look for rss feed icons. Rss feed icons are yellow orange in color, and have a white dot with two swerving lines around it, the shapes of a quarter of a circle outline. Rss feed icons are usually square, but can take on other shapes depending on the website.

Many websites and individuals use rss feeds since they are helpful in supplying the newest information, as well as directing traffic back toward the site. A cat blogger rss feed, for example, might run an rss for various cat news on their site. They might even use an rss icon in the shape of a cat!