God-centered resources from the ministry of John Piper

RSS feeds are another convenient way to keep up with new content on a website. As with podcasts, there are probably many people that still aren’t quite familiar with them. For those people, here is a short primer on RSS feeds.

What is RSS?
RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication.” It’s really just a way of “subscribing” to a site such that you are automatically notified when new content for the subscription has been posted. Further, you can access the content directly in your RSS reader, so you don’t even have to go to the site to view the content.

This is very similar to having a podcast subscription, except that podcasts are for audio and video whereas an RSS feed displays written content. But in both cases, there is one centralized spot where you can see all of your subscriptions from all of the sites you are subscribed to. This centralization is nice—it makes it easy to check what’s new on multiple different sites, all within one single, simple interface.

How do You Sign Up?
In order to subscribe to RSS feeds, you first need a feedreader program. Here is a list of popular feedreaders:

• Windows: SharpReader, Internet Explorer 7 (it is built right in, and I find that I actually prefer IE7 to Firefox), Firefox via Livebookmarks (built-in) or Sage (plugin).
• Mac: NetNewsWire Lite, NewsFire, Firefox (see above).
• Web-based: Google Reader, NewsGator (not free), Bloglines.

Once you have a feedreader, you'll begin to note that many websites have buttons that say "subscribe" or "XML." When you want to subscribe to a site, click that button. If you are using IE7, there is a "subscribe" button right in the browser which will show you if the site offers any RSS feeds, and you can subscribe right from there.

What RSS Feeds Does DG Offer?
Desiring God offers four RSS feeds. If you have your feedreader set up, you can click on any of the links below to set up its feed. (If clicking the link does not open your feedreader automatically, right click on the link, select “copy link location,” and paste the link into your feedreader.)

1. Blog. Updates several times a day. If you subscribe to the blog feed, you will also see the new sermons and taste & see when they post, so I recommend this feed most of all.
2. Sermons. Updates every Monday. Have the sermon automatically delivered to you and read it right from your RSS reader.
3. Taste & See Articles. Updates every Wednesday. Have John Piper’s weekly article automatically delivered and read it right from your RSS reader.
4. Radio Programs. Updates every day and tells you what program is airing.