What is this orange thing?

You've probably seen this symbol on several websites, and maybe you're not quite sure what it means. This is the recognised icon for an RSS feed.

RSS is:

1. A format for delivering regularly changing web content. Many news-related sites, weblogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS Feed to whoever wants it.
2. An easier way to keep track of the sites you visit often - by subscribing to a feed the news will come to you rather than you having to go out and find it. Clicking through each of your bookmarks is a thing of the past — just log into your feed reader and everything is there waiting for you.

RSS means you can easily stay informed and saves you time by not having to visit each site individually. It's like having a paper boy rather than going to the newsagent yourself!

So if you want to see the latest Chalets Direct Promotions and Special Offers just subscribe to the Promotions feed and hey presto! Great holiday offers on your doorstep - or should that be desktop?

So how do I subscribe?

To subscribe to a feed you'll need a feed reader or a news aggregator. You might already have one without realising it. The majority are free - some come bundled with browsers or email software.

Feed Reader or News Aggregator software allow you to grab the RSS feeds from various sites and display them for you to read and use. The reader will then check for updated content on a regular basis.

A variety of RSS Readers are available for different platforms. Some you download and use on your computer, others are web-based.

Some popular feed readers include FeedReader, and NewsGator (Windows - integrates with Outlook). There are also a number of web-based feed readers available. My Yahoo, Bloglines, and Google Reader are popular web-based feed readers.

Once you have your feed reader, it is just a case of finding sites that syndicate content and adding their RSS feed to the list of feeds your Feed Reader checks.

Many sites display a small icon with the acronyms RSS, XML, or RDF to let you know a feed is available. All you need to do is click the button to subscribe.