What Is RSS?

If you have never heard about RSS, or have heard about it but never used it, here's some information to help get you started

What Is RSS?

RSS stands for Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication, depending on whom you ask. The dual acronym is really the most complicated thing about it. RSS is a simple way to deliver summaries of frequently changing Web content. By plugging a link into an RSS reader, you can retrieve the newest content offerings for your favorite Web sites while saving the time it takes to actually visit each site or cull through your burgeoning list of bookmarks on a daily basis. For more information about RSS, read TechSoup's article RSS for Nonprofits.

How Can I Use TechSoup's RSS Feed?

You can use TechSoup's RSS feeds in two ways: By putting our RSS feeds on your organization's Web site or by using an RSS aggregator (also known as a feed reader or newsreader).

Displaying TechSoup Content on Your Organization's Web Site

If you think that visitors to your Web site would be interested in TechSoup's latest content, you may want to use our RSS feed to display our headlines, forum threads, and donations on your site. This is done by inserting a link to our RSS feed into your Web page's code. You should have some experience with your Web page's code or enlist the help of someone who does before inserting the RSS feed. The feed itself comprises of plain text, so you will need to specify within the Web page code how you'd like the feed to display.

Click here to see some examples of how the TechSoup RSS Feed could look on your site

Using an RSS Feed Reader

Personalized feed readers, probably the most common way to use RSS, allow you to grab RSS feeds from various sites and display them in plain text . There are many feed readers available for various platforms. Among the top picks listed on Blogspace.com are NetNewsWire for Mac OS X, SharpReader for Windows, and Straw for Linux.

Once you have selected a feed reader, you can find sites that syndicates content — often indicated by a small icon with the acronyms RSS, XML, or RDF. Then, you just add their RSS feed to the list of feeds that your aggregator checks.

Here are step by step instructions on adding TechSoup's RSS feeds to your feed reader:

1. Click on our feed links. You'll see a page full of XML code.
2. Copy the URL for that page.
3. Open your feed reader.
4. Within your feed reader, choose the option to add a new feed.
5. Paste the URL into the appropriate field and submit.
6. Enjoy the latest TechSoup headlines, forum threads, and donations.