About RSS

After having a harrowing experience with RSS lately I thought I should do a series about RSS because it’s one of the most under-utilized tools out there.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. Basically it allows users to “subscribe” to your “RSS feed” which when set up properly allows readers to get updates when you update your website. So obviously that means someone needs to have a “reader” set up somewhere so they can have the information “gathered” for them.

I set this website up incorrectly, well, I didn’t know it had done it until I just tried to get my “feed” to work with Face book and Twitter and decided to try a new service Twitterfeed. It seems I am trying new services all the time and there so are many out there is makes my head spin. So anyway, I am going off track (again)…….. My original RSS feedburner feed had “burned” my feed based on a photo plugin called “Next Gen Gallery”, don’t ask me how it happened, I have no idea!! So the only way to get it to work was delete that plugin, burn the feed, then re-install it.

Being that I have set up so many Feedburner feeds I was amazed I could screw it up so bad. So I have subscribers that are now subscribed to something I can’t really use, I need to notify them my “feed” has moved.

Having a “reader” poses several other challenges. When you set it up I STRONGLY recommend you do all tutorials available, I didn’t thinking I could go back and guess what? I’ve never found those tutorials again.

I also made the mistake of subscribing to a million “feeds”. Now I have so much in my reader I am completely overwhelmed when I go in there. So I’ve been taking a deep breath and slowly wading through the enormous task of “un-subscribing” to a lot of them…….

So that pitiful story will start off the RSS series……..