[OA Staff Member]

RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication". It's a tool that helps you organize and stay up-to-date with online information. You can use RSS to subscribe to all of your favorite websites (like OfficeArrow). RSS allows you to view the latest headlines from each website all in one place - your RSS reader. It's pretty cool, actually.

How Does it Work?

When you subscribe to a website via RSS, you are simply telling the website that you'd like to receive the latest headlines in your reader. If you like a headline, you can click on it and read the whole story - either in your reader or on the physical website.

RSS Readers

Your RSS reader will consolidate all of the latest headlines from each website all in one place. There are several different RSS readers you can use. Personally, I really like Google Reader because it's very easy to use and organize, and it looks similar to an e-mail inbox. Each morning, I go to Google Reader and browse through the latest headlines from my favorite websites. Some sites even let you read the entire article from your reader, so you're not bouncing around the internet, getting distracted by advertisements and pop ups. Other sites will require you to click on the headline in your reader and then you'll be taken to the physical site to read the rest of the story.

There are lots of RSS readers you can choose from and most of them are free. Here are a few to check out:

Google Reader
My Yahoo
My AOL
Bloglines
Netvibes
PageFlakes
FeedDemon not free
NewsGator not all services are free
Shrook for Mac Users, not free


The Benefits of Using RSS

Using an RSS reader can save you a ton of time and frustration. You don't have to scrounge around your favorite sites for articles that interest you. Instead, you can subscribe to the categories you actually care about. For example, here at OfficeArrow, you can subscribe to your favorite topic section or sections: The OA Toolbox, Career Development, Business Travel, Meeting Planning or Products and Services. In the future, you'll even be able to subscribe to a particular author that you like, for example - me! If you generally like my articles and want to know when I've published a new one, subscribing via RSS will help you stay on top of it. That way, you never miss one!

RSS can also help you organize and remember your favorite websites. Before I started using it, I would just bookmark my favorite sites on my computer. That was fine, until my bookmark list became one long, unorganized mess. With my reader, I can create folders for different areas of interest. For example, I have a folder for productivity where the headlines from all of my favorite productivity sites appear. I also have another one for Career Advice and yes, one for Celebrity Trash as well. Also, bookmarking is computer specific. So my bookmarks at home were never the same as my bookmarks as the office. With RSS, you can log into your reader from any computer with an internet connection. For more ways of organizing bookmarks, check out the article on Social Bookmarking.

How to Get Started

If all of this sounds interesting, the first thing to do is select a reader. Once you're all set up with one, you can start subscribing to RSS feeds on your favorite sites. Start with OfficeArrow. Below you'll find links to all of our feeds. Choose which one interests you and get started today!

OfficeArrow RSS Feeds:

All Articles
The OA Toolbox
The Career Center
Business Travel
Meeting Planning
Products and Services


And soon, we'll have individual feeds for each writer!