RSS and OPML

I'm just starting to get into RSS (as I already said). RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, and basically its a way for websites and blogs to list their posts/stories/whatever information where you can read it without having to go through all the crap of visiting their website/seeing their ads/etc. It's great for slower connections, or people who just want to see it text only, with the occasional picture if the post has one.

http://rss.gregarius.net is a great place to go and look and kind of get a feel for what RSS feeds are all about. Gregarius is a php-based RSS aggregator (in short, a program that deciphers RSS feeds into where you can read them). Anyway, if you go to that website and look, you will see all the different feed names on the left, and a collective list of the posts on the right. If you click on a feed, it will show you only posts from THAT feed on the right...

There are some great online feed readers, such as Google or Bloglines. There are also some for your PC that let you download the feeds to your desktop, but since I don't do that I can't suggest any programs for it.

The next time you go to a website, look for the orange RSS symbol in the address bar of your web browser, or look for it somewhere on the page. A lot of websites offer this, you almost don't even have to go to websites anymore to get caught up in the information it provides, you just have to subscribe to their RSS feeds :)

OPML is a standard for importing/exporting your RSS feeds (so you can make a backup, or so you can change feed readers, or so you can share your feeds lists). (Well, really its original intent wasn't that at all, but oh well!) A great site for OPML/RSS sharing is http://share.opml.org :)

Edit: I forgot to mention, I installed Gregarius on my website... my OPML list is also online.