Can someone explain RSS feeds to me like I'm 5?

Question

I have a blog, and I've been reading up on RSS feeds for over a month now, and just when I think I've got them figured out I realize I have now clue what they are or how to use them. I've done all the searches "What are RSS feeds?" and stuff like that, but I don't know if I'm just not smart enough to figure it out or what but, I just don't understand how they work or what I'm supposed to do with them.

From what I understand you go to a site that offers RSS feeds and you put in the URL of your blog than people are supposed to be able to find you. But I don't know if I need to do something to my blog (put in an html code) or if all I have to do is let the site know I've updated the blog. I don't know if this puts me on some list somewhere, or if only people who've chosen to subscribe to my blog will see it (in which case I really don't need it till I get a lot more traffic).

I see tons of them everywhere, tons of sites (including yahoo) offer RSS feeds, but when you go to the feeds all it says on most of them is "Enter Your site" so I don't understand how or where people see my site once I've entered it.

And any time I look up a site that's trying explain RSS feeds, it's like they're explaining what they do, to people who already know what they do and they leave out a lot of info and basic information (like what the hell they even are!). So can someone please just explain it to me, like you'd explain it to a 5 year old child?

Answer 1

RSS (most commonly expanded as "Really Simple Syndication") is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format. An RSS document (which is called a "feed", "web feed", or "channel") includes full or summarized text, plus metadata such as publishing dates and authorship. Web feeds benefit publishers by letting them syndicate content automatically. They benefit readers who want to subscribe to timely updates from favored websites or to aggregate feeds from many sites into one place. RSS feeds can be read using software called an "RSS reader", "feed reader", or "aggregator", which can be web-based, desktop-based, or mobile-device-based. A standardized XML file format allows the information to be published once and viewed by many different programs. The user subscribes to a feed by entering into the reader the feed's URI or by clicking an RSS icon in a web browser that initiates the subscription process. The RSS reader checks the user's subscribed feeds regularly for new work, downloads any updates that it finds, and provides a user interface to monitor and read the feeds.



RSS formats are specified using XML, a generic specification for the creation of data formats. Although RSS formats have evolved from as early as March 1999, it was between 2005 and 2006 when RSS gained widespread use, and the ("Feed-icon.svg") icon was decided upon by several major Web browsers.



RSS:



WordPress Feeds: http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Feeds

Customizing Feeds: http://codex.wordpress.org/Customizing_Feeds

Adding RSS Feeds to WordPress: http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2006/03/16/adding-rss-feeds-to-wordpress/

RSS Feed Plugin Download: http://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/fix-rss-feed.zip



Ron

Answer 2

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication.



RSS is a standard format for syndicating content on the Internet. The content can be anything!



Users can choose which feeds they wish to subscribe to, if at any point they are unhapy with the content contained in the RSS feed they simply unsubscribe and no longer receive feed updates.



RSS feeds are usually signalled by a small orange icon or if you are using Firefox and the website has an RSS feed available an icon will appear in the URL box. You can click the icon to see the contents of the RSS feed.

Answer 3

The really easy answer is this: An RSS feed is simply data from another server that contains content for display. The content is sent in a generic format so it can be displayed and styled however is necessary. Usually, it's just a bunch of links to other blog sites or something like that.

Answer 4

Ummm, quite they did deliver it up a pair cases on MSNBC in the present day, and that i'm extremely useful Fox is going to easily consume it up, so do no longer difficulty approximately media coverage. Biden's "sparkling and articulate" remark made the information for a mutually as. to respond to your question: Al "White interlopers" Sharpton and Jesse "Himeytown" Jackson. on your different question, if the Republican clarified afterwards and went on approximately socioeconomics and replaced into fairly honest approximately all of it only being a poor decision of grammar, then that's O.ok. by way of my standards, i attempt to offer human beings the earnings of the doubt. in view that this could be a hypothetical, i do no longer understand how the media could react. My predictions could be that the media selections it up for a mutually as, a pair of television specials on racism are aired, and Fox defends the priority like they have been Christ and blames liberals as continually or something.

Answer 5

Explain Rss Feed