RSS is an acronym, but there is no concensus on what it really means. I've heard Really Simple Syndication, Rich Site Summary, and several others...it really doesn't make any difference.

To explain what RSS is, first I need to explain the common ways that we get information on the web. Easily the most common is "Pull" technology. This is where you actually direct your browser to a particular URL, and the information on the page is downloaded to your computer. When you come to Interfaith Forums, you are using Pull technology. The other kind is "Push" technology, which is often used in the business environment. In Push technology, the user doesn't do anything at all to get the information. Instead, the information is "pushed" to the computers on the network. There are many advantages to this. For instance, Automatic Updates use push technology. RSS technology uses both..."Push-Pull". Now hold that thought.

Before continuing, I need to explain that in order to receive RSS feeds, you require a reader. Think of trying to open and read a PDF document...you won't be able to without a reader (Adobe owns PDF, and the Adobe Acrobat Reader is a free download to let you read and open pdf files.)

Okay, basically what happens is that a web page that is RSS enabled can be "subscribed" to. If it is, whenever there is a change in the contents of the page, that fact is "pushed" to every computer that is subscribed. The RSS reader on that system can then "Pull" the page, to display the new information. An example of how this operates is www.foxnews.com or www.msnbc.com. In this case, the reader is built in, but it functions the same. As new news come in, the reader automatically pulls the new information, so it appears on these websites as updated news. This is easier all the way around than to rewrite the web page every time something happens, or even to add to the page...adding to the page on a news site would very soon mean that the page would be enormous.

A growing number of sites (including this one) are using RSS feeds. What this means is that if you have a reader, the reader can inform you of the new page by displaying the new content. This is really cool stuff.

Okay, so where can you get an RSS reader? www.im.com has a really good one that you can download and install. They have a number of feeds that you can select, or you can add your own subscriptions, in other words, you don't HAVE to use the feeds that they have available. There are other readers available at sites such as downloads.com. I use a news reader called NewsRaider (www.newsrader.com) that is also a free download that is an RSS reader tied in to a number of news sources. The downside of that one is that only the news services they have in their application can be selected. Still, they have a great selection, so it is a good way to get a number of news feeds delivered you to. The PersonalWeb (www.personalweb.com) also uses RSS, though again, currently it isn't user configurable. Still, it has a huge number of RSS feeds to choose from.

An easily configurable reader can be downloaded, free, from http://www.rssreader.com/