RSS in Plain English

Posted on by Joseph Porter
RSS in Plain English


The Internet has problems. Technorati says there are 50 million weblogs,
and as you can see, it’s going up. This is overwhelming. Our focus here is on a new and efficient way
to keep up with all the cool stuff that’s happening on the Internet. So I’m gonna talk about two ways that you can keep up with what’s happening on the web. There’s the old slow way – Boo. Then, there’s the new and fast way – Yay! Here’s the difference between the new and
the old way. This is you, and here are your favorite websites. You log on to your computer, and you’re looking
for something new. You go out to your favorite blogs. Anything new? Nope. You go out to your favorite news sites. Anything new? Nope. Every time you look for something new and
it’s not there, you’ve wasted valuable time. This is the old way. Now, let’s consider the new and fast way,
which simply means taking these arrows and turning them the other direction. This means that new things from blogs and
your favorite sites come to you instead. It’s like Netflix compared to the video store. What we’re talking about is using a single
website that becomes your home for reading all the new stuff that’s coming from your
favorite websites. There are two steps to getting started. The first step is creating a home for reading
new posts. This is a website called a reader. All you need is a free account to get started. My favorite sites are listed on the left,
and on the right I can scroll through all the new posts from my favorite sites in a
single place. So, to complete step one, you need to sign
up for a news reader. Step number two, is to set up a connection
between your reader and your favorite websites. Setting up these connections is called subscribing,
and it’s really important. Nearly every blog and news site offers the
ability for you to subscribe so new things from these sites show up here in your reader. To set up these subscriptions, look for funny
little icons. This is the standard orange one. You may also see these. These little icons say, “Hey! Subscribe to me! I can save you time!” Once you find one of these buttons on your
favorite site, click on it and the page that appears will give you everything you need
to subscribe. After you click that button, one of two types
of pages will appear. This is one that provides one click access
to subscribing in your reader. The other page you’re likely to see looks
like this – with code on it. If you see this page, copy the address at
the top of the page, go to your reader and look for a link that says “Add Subscription”
or “Add Feed.” Click on that, and paste the address into
your reader. Once you’ve added your subscriptions and the
connection is there, new posts begin arriving in your reader and you’ll see why this is
the new, faster way to read the web. It’s addictive, so be careful! A quick recap. There are two things you need to do. Number one is to go sign up for a reader. Number two, go to your favorite websites,
click on the icon and subscribe. I’m Lee LeFever, and this has been “RSS in Plain English” on The Common Craft Show.

100 Replies to “RSS in Plain English”

  9. I really enjoyed watching your video. The kind of one to let any dummy going from absolutely no knowledge of RSS to: "I can now understand what people mean when they say RSS"

    Reply

  25. I love this video! Great job! I honestly feel like I was going through one of the Dummies book. You did just that well. ? Thank you for sharing!

    Reply

  28. Or you can set your home page to youtube and let its AI decide what news to show you and dont bother with all this antiquated stuff.

    Reply

  32. I can't see why I would EVER need something like that? Don't we get enough junk pushed at us from the internet as it is?

    Reply

  34. Man, this guy way ahead of everyone. Are you rich right now? What stocks should I invest in? Pls help, Lord Sage!

    Reply

  35. love this video. What you did not tell us was that it was originally done in powerpoint, but window vista launched 2007 so it didnt work! so we all went back to pens and paper until w7 came out.

    Reply

  50. जन सहयोग आधार पर श्रीराम मंदिर पर आधारित मोबाइल एप्स "श्रीराम सर्किल"शीघ्र ही लांच होने जा रहा है। अपना सहयोग दे कर इस शुभ कार्य में सहयोगी बनकर लाभ लें।। केवल सौ सहयोगी चाहिये।। फोन पर और जानकारी के लिये फोन करे. 9630804142 पर।।

    Reply

  51. What the hell, why am I learning about this just now?!

    Also, google reader is discontinued 🙁 I hope RSS is still a thing.

    Reply

  55. Wow it's been 10 years. I remember i would try to explain this and people for some reason could understand. Now everyone knowingly and unknowingly uses this.

    Reply

  68. I agree with many of the previous comments: 12 years later (2019) & this video is still very helpful. 
    This is what you call "timeless" … 
    except for the Netflix/ Video Store comparison, of course 😉

    Reply

  69. …and by the way, here is a link to some cool "RSS Reader Apps" (in 2018/ 2019) ->
    https://zapier.com/blog/best-rss-feed-reader-apps/

    Reply

  74. 12 years later and I'm just now learning about RSS, from a video made in Youtube's primitive era. . . I guess we can learn from history.

    Reply

  90. Bruh I work in Tech and idk why people don't talk about these! I'm so happy I learned about this 11 years later!

    Reply

  96. legislature.mi.gov , the website where you can go to find pretty much all state legislature for Michigan. It's an ancient website and not very easy to use.

    This is linked there. Except it's not.
    A Bing search is linked there.

    Reply

  98. Changing with the times.!The way technology has evolved is amazing and it's preparing our kids for 21st century learning. I loved the comparison of Netflix and a video store .

    Reply

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