Blog Azeroth

I use google reader and when I want to add a new blog, I just paste the url. I am currently looking to get my blog listed on some sites and they all want my RSS feed. I have no idea what an RSS Feed is. Is it just my URL?

A second question, I see some blogs have a button that says subcribe...I'm using wordpress, how do I get that button on my site?

-Mandalus Vigilance

Here's a quick primer in RSS:

RSS stands for Rich Site Summary, which is simply a fancy way of saying it is a format used to deliver content from a source in a neatly formatted manner. There are multiple types of feeds available, and RSS is generally used as a catch-all for the different types f feeds. Most of the time the RSS feed for a site is very similar to the regular URL (for example, my blog is actually hosted at http://www.diabolicalminds.com/weblog/ and my original RSS feed was located at http://www.diabolicalminds.com/weblog/?feed=rss2).

Another thing you could do is to use a third-party service to provide extra features to your RSS feed. If nothing else you can go to feedburner.google.com and enter your URL into the "Burn a feed" box and click next. That will provide you with the URL of your feed if it is already available, even if you choose not to continue the setup and use Feedburner.

As for setting things up on your site, I've never used the wordpress.com hosted service as I use a self-hosted Wordpress install, but I know the ability for you to setup the feeds is there (if not enabled by default). Hopefully someone who is hosted on wordpress.com can provide a little more insight into the specific setup for you.

If you're using wordpress.com you can either

A) Find a theme that nicely inserts RSS feed information somewhere on your page or
B) Go to the Appearance->Widgets and drag and drop the RSS Links to the appropriate spot on the right hand side.

Hope this helps!

For Blogspot user, to display the icon on your blog page itself, what I did was:

-Sign up with feed burner
-Select 'Publicize' on the top tab selection.
-Select 'Chicklet Chooser' from the left side of the bar.
-Pick your chicklet.
-Scroll all the way down.
-There's a box saying 'USE AS A WIDGET IN'
-Use the pull down box and select Blooger.

Oh man.. RSS confuses me so much.
Okay, so say there's a blog I want to subscribe to, and I click on the convenient little "Subscribe to RSS feed" button. The page that comes up gives me what looks to be a long string of code, and does really little else to tell me if i'm subscribed, -how- to subscribe if i'm not... hell, it doesn't even look like it's the same page. I'm so confused, can anyone help a royal noob out here?

First
Find yourself an RSS reader. I would strongly suggest Google Reader for ease of use, and you can read it from anywhere

Second
You can add a subscription a couple of ways

From a Blog:
Find the RSS or Subscribe button and click
It will generally bring up another page with the feed and a whole set of little buttons in the right hand corner. Look for the google button and click it.
This will bring you to google reader where you can hit the subscribe button
Under the Feed Settings button you can assign your new blog to a folder.

From google reader
Click Add a Subscription
Type in the name of the blog or the url
Follow the steps above

Windsoar, thanks for the help. I think i'm finally starting to get the hang of things around the interwebs lol.

No problem! I followed everything by bookmark until I started my own blog as well

RSS is sometimes called Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication. It is one way of delivering a message to your RSS subscribers that a new article is posted on your blog. There are ways which people can know if you have updated your blog/website that is by either visiting your site or signing on your newsletter. Unfortunately, visiting many blogs (that you like) is tiring and opening your emails could be a pain for some people.

Some smart guys thought of incorporating updatable RSS feeds into your web browsers which you can instantly see whenever you use the internet. RSS is very convenient to use and you as a publisher should take advantage of it in order to promote your blog. Any blogs can have a RSS feed attachment. You can search for more information online.

Rss is an acronym for Realy simple syndicate.this is actualy used to feed your information either in the form of blog posting,news,article submission,audio,viodeo.so it helps us to increse search engine visibility in better way and also you will get more number of targetted visitor to your websites.