One of the great time wasters in internet marketing is keeping track of sites that you like such as blogs, newspapers and so on.

It is generally assumed that everybody knows what an RSS feed is but when you click on the RSS logo on many sites nothing really happens, as it has not been “activated”.

So what is RSS?

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RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication (some say it is Rich Site Summary).

Originally it was necessary to bookmark sites on your  browser and then come back and check them at intervals to see if anything had been added.

Obviously if you are tracking many sites, for example, the sites of a forum, it can be a lot of work and very time consuming.

RSS actually reverses that by telling you when there are any updates from your chosen sites by sending the updates to one specific place where you can read them  at your convenience.

” This has made it really easy to not only publish regular updates to web-based content, but also keep track of a large number of your favorite websites or blogs, without having to remember to check each site manually or clutter your email inbox.

You can now streamline your online experience by subscribing to specific content feeds and aggregating this information in one place to be read when you’re ready.” Feedburner

In order for you to read sites via RSS you must first join an RSS FEED READER. There are many out there but it is best to start with the free ones which are more than adequate, such as Google Reader, Bloglines, My Yahoo etc. I use Google Reader myself.

Once you have subscribed all you have to do is click on the RSS logo on sites that you wish to follow, chose your reader and then add that site within the reader. Updates to that site will then be sent to your reader.

Here is a Youtube video which runs through this procedure:

Perhaps not the best video but a good explanation.
Best suggestion is to subscribe to a few feeds and see how it goes.
I hope this explains what RSS is.

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