I didn’t know how RSS worked for a long time. It’s too bad because RSS is a great way to follow websites that you like. It stands for Real Simple Syndication (see wiki article for more info) and is a way for websites to create feeds of their content that users can subscribe to. This is one of those cases where a little barrier can be enough to block adoption. I wanted to share with you how RSS works in case you also are wondering how those little broadcast symbols work.

Following a website or blog on social media is pretty straightforward; you just click on the button for Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/etc. You can achieve the same thing with RSS, but you need to know a couple things first. If you just click on the button you might be asked to open a text file with a bunch of code in it.

That’s what I did, which is wrong. That code is actually a computer readable version of the latest posts from the website. Instead, you copy the link (right click and press “Copy link location”), and then you subscribe to that link in your RSS reader. But wait, I also had no idea what an RSS reader was. It turns out an RSS reader is just an app that automatically reads a website’s RSS feed and pulls the latest posts and updates from the websites that you follow. I’m using Inoreader right now which allows me to follow several blogs all in one place. Here’s a screenshot from my phone:

If you want to start following websites outside of social media (and without spamming your email inbox) then sign up for a RSS reader. There are a bunch of options with readers, Feedly is a popular one. Many are free and you always can switch later if you realize that another has features that you like.

I’ll end by noting that you may already be using RSS without knowing it. iTunes or Spotify (or wherever you get your podcasts) are essentially readers for podcasts that are broadcasted using RSS! So if you want to create a podcast you just need to create an RSS feed and connect it to iTunes (see this tutorial for example).

I’m planning on looking into how I can use RSS more on this site. I hope you enjoy RSS too. May it help you break free of the social media silos and find the content you like.