Rich Site Summary (RSS) is a standardized web feed format that’s used to publish frequently updated content. RSS for websites can be for blogs, news headlines, audio and video clips and any media that gets updated on a regular basis. RSS feeds for websites are extremely common, operating in a standardized XML file format. These RSS feeds for websites can work in favor of consumers who want to gather their feeds from many sites into one place, or for publishers who want a way to syndicate content automatically, since the content can be viewed by many different programs once it’s first been published.

What are some more specific examples of RSS for websites? You’ll find an RSS feed for websites on almost any conceivable topic. There’s RSS for websites that gather photos, memes, jokes, inspirational quotes, or to follow your friends’ blogs. There can also be RSS for more practical or serious purposes, like daily currency exchange rates, updates on political campaigns in progress (especially useful for people who are actually working on the campaign), general news and even severe weather warnings like hurricane watch.

So how does it all work? RSS for websites are actually simple text files that are sent to a server, then sent directly to users’ screens. Setting up RSS for websites is fairly simple, and can be accomplished using a selection of free RSS readers available online now. You’ll need to use one of several methods to manually load RSS content into your reader, but once that’s accomplished, the feed will continue to push you new information all the time (actually with a surprisingly small lag of about 30 seconds). If you think RSS for websites sounds like an appealing idea, it’s easy to try so go ahead and download a reader and see if you like the feeling of automatically receiving all the updates that are most important to you.