Google Reader and RSS feeds - #1 - RSS - Really Simple Syndication

RSS isn't as complicated as you may think. In fact, the acronym RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. We'll start off this 10-part RSS series by demystifying RSS and introducing Google Reader, a simple but powerful RSS reader.

Welcome to the RSS with Google Reader series. RSS is something you’ve probably heard about but may not understand. It's not as complicated as you may think. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, what does that mean? Well, basically RSS gives you a way to access blogs and websites that you may visit daily or weekly but all in one place. It helps you to gather all of this information in one location and makes it so you don’t even really need to visit those websites as often. For example, let's say I read this cooking blog, watch videos on this site and read news here everyday. Well with RSS now, I can be notified when there is new content and I can read most of the stories right from here in my Feed reader. The Feed reader is what grasps the new content and organizes it into one central location. For this series, I'm going to show you how to understand and use RSS with Google Reader. Google Reader is free and anyone with the Google account can start using it right away. Remember there are 10 parts to this series so don’t forget to check out the other episodes in the RSS with Google reader series.