An RSS Overview

• A way to get information sent to you automatically by subscribing to it and having it send to a special application called a feed (or RSS) reader - or directly to your email client (i.e. Outlook)
• Content is pushed out to you; you don't have to go out and pull it in (more or less...)
• This symbol on a webpage makes it really easy to subscribe to its content through RSS (although these days its rare that a site that can be subscribed to will show this symbol).
• Video: RSS in Plain English (3.5 minutes, from CommonCraft)
• EDUCAUSE: 7 Things You Should Know about RSS (Searchable PDF)
  • April 2007 - do you see a theme?

For those who just would rather get stuff via email, there are applications like Blogtrottr that allow you to subscribe to feeds, but get new posts sent to your email box. Many blogs offer a "send to email" option as well. In addition, Microsoft Outlook (2013, 2016, Office 365) have built-in feed readers that treat blog posts like email (you can even see blog posts in the web  version of Outlook). Note: You can read blog posts in online Outlook, but you can't add new feeds/sites.

The Most Important Thing to Know About RSS:

Although it is still an important web tool, these days its more on the back end for most people.

Except...podcasting

If you want to use a direct RSS reader:

My Yahoo My Yahoo is a popular portal that integrates feeds and other content.
Years ago, many people used Google Reader for their RSS feeds, but that service is no longer available. Many people switched to the Feedly RSS reader service. You can find an updated (2021) list of recommended feedreaders here.