How to explain RSS to your grandma

Filed under: Internet, Blogging, Web services

How to explain RSS to your grandma

by Jordan Running Jul 13th 2006

The appropriately-named Of Zen and Computing has an article that's been making the rounds lately, called A non-technical explanation of RSS. It is what it claims to be: A short, easy-to-parse description of what feeds are, how to find them, and how to read them, for people who aren't geeks. Or at least not internet geeks (I have a theory that everybody is some kind of geek--model railroad geek, sports geek, reality TV geek--but I digress). So bookmark this link and the next time a terminally non-technical friend/spouse/relative/boss asks you WTF is RSS, you'll have an answer.

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

kyler said 5:56PM on 7-14-2006

i love your geek theory, i was thinking the same thing the other day. everybody is a geek, but some people hide it better than others

Joe Beaulaurier said 10:01PM on 7-18-2006

At the risk of sounding argumentative (I'm not, really), I disagree that this is a good explaination of RSS to lay people unless they need to be able to hold their own in a conversation with techies.

My company uses RSS to serve our clients' needs and more often than not they haven't a clue what RSS is or does. We have struggled with finding the right way to express to them what it is and does (not necessary how it does it, that's backstage magic for the techies).

Our best position so far is to use an email analogy. We explain that each RSS address is much like an email box and an RSS reader is much like an email reader. Point your reader at the address and it will check to see if there's anything new to present to you. Your reader can be pointed at several RSS addresses. The items that can travel via RSS are many (such as the examples provided in the Zen explaination).

This has been received fairly well since most people understand the send/receive and push/pull mechanism of email readers.

I hope this may help others in my situation.

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