Why you should be using RSS feeds
By Wong Li Yee
Have you ever seen a square orange box with a white dot and a few white lines that look like waves coming out of it when you're on a website?
These icons actually indicate that it is possible for us to subscribe to RSS feeds. Really simple syndication (RSS) feeds is a method of collecting information from various websites, which are often updated.
Our smartphones, whether they run on Android or Apple's custom firmware, host a large variety of applications (apps) dedicated to collecting feeds from numerous sites.
Why are these RSS feeds better than e-mail based subscription of websites?
My personal experience showed that e-mail based subscription on websites will cause a horrible clutter to our e-mail inbox.
While it may not be a hassle if you only subscribe to one or two sites, the e-mail interface is not suited for us to go through many articles quickly.
Adding new feeds and searching through news is easy as feeds can be categorized. Simply fill in the name of the website to add it to a list of other sites you wish to add.
Summaries of news items can be pre-loaded then browsed through even without Internet. Although, this depends on which application you choose to use.
An Android app and website which supports RSS feeds, Feedly, has a smooth interface but only loads a category and automatically refreshes if the app is closed. RSS Reader can be used without constant Internet, but doesn't have categories to sort.
Ellen Finkelstein, the writer of Syndicating Websites with RSS Feeds for Dummies revealed another benefit.
Websites can't track us if we simply browse through their content through the RSS readers.
Website owners don't know who or how long we spend reading articles, except that the numbers of subscribers the feed has and the count of clicks. Plus, we won't see the advertisements from the site as well.
Technology blogs, PC games, language learning sites, all these can be found online but bookmarking all of them and checking each day can take time we don't need to spend. Subscribing to feeds makes it very fast to learn more in a short time.
The downside to feeds is the large amount of posts that accumulate in the list. It is advisable to add feeds with quality articles and remember to check on them every few days. Fast updating feeds are often news sites, which can have up to a hundred news items a day. Best for us to skim through summaries of news items and only read those that are relevant.
Here are some suggestions of what feeds would be suitable for students: news, hobbies, interest sites and inspirational blogs.
Feeds of newspaper sites allow us to expand our general knowledge. The Star, Nanyang Siang Pau, Malay Mail and other local papers have their own feeds that are linked back to their news site.
Do it yourself sites, start-up blogs and game development blogs are for those who might want to pursue jobs in those fields.
These blogs often give insight on what went wrong or the best way to go about doing things, such as teamwork, simple mistakes beginners make, building your own tree-house or coming up with the unique ideas for your newest story.
Ian Tan Kim Teck, a lecturer of Faculty of Computing and Informatics in Multimedia University remarked that the younger generation of Malaysians do not read as much and they rely on postings they read on social media.
Tan stated, "For those who do read online, a magazine format with heavy graphics seemed to be the trend."
Hopefully this article would convince those who are avid readers to get RSS readers as it can be a powerful tool to students who want to gain information quickly while maintaining anonymity.