What is RSS?

Do you have trouble keeping up with news and information on all the different web sites you like?

Going to each page individually and clicking round them can be a bit time consuming and might stop you checking out some sites

It would be useful if you could keep an eye on them all from one place, updating you when the site gets updated

This is where RSS comes in, it allow you to 'subscribe' to the information from a web site, and get told about updates to all of them form one place.

There is some discussion as to what RSS stands for, but the majority plump for 'Really Simple Syndication'. Put plainly, it allows you to identify the content you like and have it delivered directly to you.

Not all websites use RSS yet, but it is growing in popularity and many like the BBC have them already.

How do I start using RSS feeds?

To use an RSS Feed, you need an RSS Feed Reader, surprisingly!
These can work within your browser (such as Bloglines), or can be a downloadable application(some free, some not). All allow you to display and subscribe to the RSS feeds you want.

Once you have a Feed Reader to use, you just need to get some feeds to add in to it to get going.

The Metal Hammer News feed (this will keep you up to date with news articles on the site) address is http://www.metalhammer.co.uk/rss, this is what you need to put into the Feed Reader to subscribe to it. The blog also has a feed at http://www.metalhammer.co.uk/blog/feed/, and this will keep you up to date with gig reviews and other things posted on there.

On other sites, look out for orange icons saying RSS or XML like this one for the address to subscribe to their feeds.

Some browsers, including Firefox, Opera and Safari, have functionality which automatically pick up RSS feeds for you. For more details on these, please check their websites.