RSS stands for Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication, depending on which geek you ask. So what is it? RSS is a method of publishing regular updates to web content. If you’ve ever used My Yahoo! or visited CNN or ESPN, you’ve seen how new headlines are added each time they publish a new story. That’s basically what RSS does.

Using RSS, it’s possible for you to see the updates on a shitload of sites all at once.

And RSS makes it possible for guys like me to make updates available for your review via the Web or e-mail. So you’d get my update when you checked your subscriptions online or daily in your e-mail box.

You can subscribe to tons of available feeds, including Yahoo!, Amazon.com, ABC News, and USA TODAY. Visit Syndic8 to search for more. Then, of course, there’s also RSS feeds from thousands of blogs for you to check out.

How Do I Get/Read RSS Feeds?

There are a lot of ways to collect and browse feeds. There are desktop programs you can download to run from one machine, but the better ones cost money and you’d need to install it on every computer you use.

I recommend using an online service like My Yahoo!, Bloglines, or NewsGator. This way you don’t have to upgrade when updates are released, and you have access to your feeds wherever you have access to the Web. Definitely easier, which makes it a good way to start.

If you’d like more tech info on RSS or want to know how to publish your own feed, check out FeedBurner’s RSS Info. It is, after all, where I stole all this info to begin with.

This link will take you to my FeedBurner feed, where you can subscribe using a number of aggregators. Again, the idea is to use a service to make news browsing easy for you. For example, my My Yahoo! page tracks updates and headlines from 16 sources all on one page. So I can see the most recent 5 updates/stories from my favorite blogs, Reuters, USA TODAY, NFL News, NHL News, Associated Press, and more.

When it comes to the news that interests me, I don’t have to browse anymore. It’s all right there on one page, thanks to RSS.

This will subscribe you to my feed via FeedBlitz. Using this service, you can have your feeds e-mailed to you daily or as they update. This is a better option for people that are more tuned to their e-mail than the web.

That’s all I know about RSS, which ain’t much. If you’ve got any questions or are having problems with your subscription, contact me and I’ll help any way I can.

If you’re having problems with anything else, call Dr. Phil.