What is RSS?

RSS Icon

What is the best way to keep up with all of the cool stuff happening in the internet tubes? It's RSS, baby.

RSS is an acronym for Real Simple Syndication, which is a too fancy way of saying "We'll send our new website content to you so you don't have to go to our website." When you see the RSS icon, either somewhere on the web page you're reading or up there in your browser's address bar, you know that the site offers their content as an RSS feed. You can subscribe to these feeds using an RSS reader (also called a news reader) such as Google Reader or Bloglines. So, instead of visiting each one of your favorite sites to see if there is anything new, your favorite site sends you new content. It's the easiest and most efficient way to keep up on what's new on the web.

First Steps in RSS

All you need to do to get started is to sign up for or download a news reader. We like Google Reader, but there are plenty of others. Check these out, or do a search on "news reader":

Once your reader is ready to go, just look for sites that display one of the common feed icons:

RSS icon RSS icon XML icon

When you see that, simply click on the icon. Depending on your reader, the link will either be added to your subscriptions automatically, or a new browser window will open with some unreadable text. If the latter happens, don't worry about the unreadable text, just copy the URL from the address bar and paste it into your news reader.

More of a visual person? Watch this educational video from Common Craft:


Ready to subscribe?

Here are the RSS feeds that we offer:

  • Park&Co News feed - You get everything we publish: blog posts, articles, book reviews, press releases, and all the witty insight you can handle.
  • Articles feed - Articles on the subjects of advertising, branding, customer experience, film/video, internet marketing, media, public relations, and web design.
  • Book Reviews feed - Like books? We do, too. Find out what we're reading and what we think of it.
  • Press Release feed - All of the AP Style Manual compliant press releases for you PR nerds.