RSS Feeds

What is an RSS feed

RSS feeds may be represented by any of these symbols

RSS feeds are geeky so we will try to explain them in very simple terms here....RSS feeds are a way to automatically follow the latest updates to a website.

Most good websites are updated on a regular basis.  Blogs have new posts written, journals have new articles published, Physiospot has new content added on a daily basis, Physiopedia is updated on a regular basis, these are just a few examples.  These websites will all have an RSS feed.  The RSS feed of a website may be represented by any of the symbols in the image on the right.  

That RSS feed automatically contains all the latest updates from the website.  To find the RSS feed on a website look for one of these orange symbols, or they might be tucked away somewhere on a page titled: subscribe, alerts, rss etc.

To use the RSS feed to your advantage you will need to subscribe to the RSS feed with a RSS reader (or aggregator).

How do I subscribe to an RSS feed

To follow RSS feeds of your choosing you will need to subscribe to the RSS feed.

To do this, you must use an RSS reader (or aggregator).

We recommend that you use Feedly to do this (you will need a Google account).  Feedly is a great reader because it runs in any browser on your desktop, as well as on any devices running either Android or iOS. If you use a Blackberry, then you can use Feedly through the browser.

To set up your Feedly, follow these steps:

1. Go to Feedly.com
2. Sign in with your Google account (if you don't have a Google account, set one up).
3. Click on the "Add Content" link in the upper left corner of the screen
4. Go to the the website of the that you wish to follow and open it your browser, then copy the URL in the web address bar at the top of the page.
5. Go back to Feedly and add the URL that you have copied into the text entry box that appears when you click on "Add Content"
6. Check a folder (or create a specific folder for the topic of this rss feed) and click "Add"
   
7. Any new updates to this source of information will then automatically appear on your Feedly page.  Do this for each of the sources of information that you wish to follow.
   

Here is a video on how to set up and use Feedly:

N.B. If you don't have a gmail address and don't wish to set one up we recommend that you use Netvibes.