And why should I care?

Good questions. First, here’s why you should care.

Unlike getting website updates or ezines by email, RSS feeds give you absolute, 100% complete control over the situation.

You don’t have to reveal your email address. If you want to stop receiving content, you don’t have to request to be taken off the list.

One click, and poof, your subscription is gone!

Plus, since there’s no email address involved, there’s no way a publisher can sell, rent or give away the means to contact you. Since I ABSOLUTELY HATE SPAM, you don’t have to worry about that at Adversity University but if you’re thinking about subscribing to someone’s blog/website but you’re hestitant to give out your email address, then RSS is the best way to go.

That’s right, if you subscribe via RSS, you won’t have to worry about the possibility of spam, viruses, phishing, or identity theft. Best of all, you won’t put yourself at the mercy of the publisher’s intentions.

What’s more, you won’t have to wad through the legalese in the privacy policy (if there is one), looking for loopholes that will send you deeper into inbox hell. No more setting up dummy Hotmail accounts “just in case.” Wink, wink.

Again, if you don’t like the content, you can make it disappear as fast as you can change a TV channel.

With just one click.

Pretty cool, huh?

Yeah, that is way cool! Umm……okay, what the heck is RSS?

Alright! Now we’re ready to get to that part.

RSS is a simply an Internet technology standard that allows busy people to receive updates to web-based content of interest.

You might have figured that much out by now. But basically, that’s the essence of an RSS feed - you subscribe and then receive new content automatically in your feed reader.

If you actually want to know how RSS works, click here.

Stephen, we’re getting somewhere but what is a feed reader?

You may already be using a form of feed reader, and not even realize it. If you use personalized home page services like My Yahoo or My MSN, you’ve already got RSS capabilities built in. That’s how syndicated content like news, weather and stock quotes appear on your personal page. You can also add content from any blog or other site that uses RSS to provide updates.

Other web-based tools are primarily dedicated to feed reading only. One of the most popular web-based feed readers at this point is Bloglines, and it’s also free and easy to get started with.

If you’re using the Internet Explorer browser, look at the bottom portion of your tool bar and you may see an icon that looks like a much smaller version of the orange button you see below. If it is “lit up” (versus dimmed), simply click on that and you’ll be taken to a page giving you the option of saving the feed via your browser’s bookmarking function. That’s how I subscribe to other blogs if I don’t want to use my email.

If you use the Firefox browser, you can also receive RSS feeds from your tool bar by using the Live Bookmarks function.

Finally, there are desktop-based feed readers. These function somewhat like an email program for feeds. Examples include Newsgator and Feed Demon.

If it sounds complicated, it’s really not. And things will get even easier when the next version of Outlook integrates feed-reading capabilities. So, you’ll have the same convenience that email subscriptions offered in the old days, without any of the terrible consequences of giving out your email address to potentially unscrupulous characters.

Alright, sounds good. So how do I subscribe to a Feed?

First of all, look for subscription or feed options (some bloggers make this extraordinarily difficult for some strange reason). You might see a variety of buttons (amusingly called chicklets) and/or a link that invites you to subscribe via RSS.

Here at Adversity University, I’ve made it as easy as possible for you to subscribe. Look to your right and you’ll see at the very top of the middle column, a sidebar called “Ways You Can Subscribe.” Right there you can enter your email address or if you want to subscribe via RSS feed, you can click on either the orange button or the link next to it.

If the site you want to subscribe to uses FeedBurner (like mine does - it’s very helpful during the subscription process), you’ll likely see the standard orange RSS icon and/or a link, both of which will take you to a page to sign up via RSS.

Depending on how the publisher set it up, the button and/or the link will take you to one of two places:

• 1. Your browser’s bookmarking function
• 2. A variety of popular feed readers

This is what the new standard RSS icon looks like:

Popular feed readers look like these (among many others):

At Adversity University, if you click on the orange button in the sidebar, you’ll be able to save the feed via your browser’s bookmarking function (you’ll notice that clicking on the small, “lit up” icon on your browser’s tool bar will lead you to the exact same page). On the other hand, if you click on the “Subcribe via RSS” link next to the orange button, you’ll be led to a page full of popular feed readers. Go ahead, play around with it! It won’t bite you. Figure out what makes you most comfortable and go with your intuition.

Finally, on other sites, you might see very small orange buttons that say XML or RSS. Often these chicklets will take you to a page that looks like code gibberish. In that case, you simply cut and paste the page URL from your browser window and manually paste it into your feed reader subscription function.

Hopefully this last method will soon disappear, never to be seen again.

In summary: RSS solves BIG problems.

So there you have it…RSS is being adopted at a phenomenal rate, because it’s a good thing for everyone.

The benefit to readers is obvious. And it’s good for publishers too, because we want to make sure that people feel comfortable subscribing whether via email or RSS, and that our messages will not be not nuked by an overzealous spam filter.

Bottom line?

You want to subcribe via email? No problem! I hate spam just as much as you do and your email will be safeguarded and kept confidential. Simply enter your email address in the box provided and click the subscribe button. You’ll get an email confirmation asking you to confirm your subscription and you’re done.

You don’t want to give out your email address? Again, not a problem. Click the orange button or a link (if provided) and choose the RSS feed reader you’re most comfortable with. That’s it!

If there’s anything here that is confusing, or you have a question, please email me and I’ll be happy to help!

Thanks to Copyblogger for a helping hand with this tutorial.

If you liked this post and you want to be notified of the next one, subscribe via Email or Full Text RSS Feed. I would love to have you as part of the community!