Often designated with  this symbol: RSS stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication’ and is a way to keep up to date with regularly changing web content that interests you.

Also known as ‘feeds’, ‘news feeds’ or ‘RSS feeds’, RSS is a bit like using ‘bookmarks’ or ‘favourites’, but instead of having to remember to visit each site you’ve bookmarked to check for anything new, RSS can make it come to you. All you need is something called an ‘RSS Reader’ and it’s possible you already have access to one:

• If you have a Google account, you can use Google Reader or add RSS feeds to your own iGoogle page;
• Mac users might already use Mac Mail which has its own reader;
• Mozilla’s Thunderbird also has a reader;
• Hotmail users can configure My MSN to gather RSS feeds;
• Yahoo users can use My Yahoo.

Alternatively, here’s a list of popular RSS readers you can download.

You can add as many RSS feeds to your reader as you like. It’s a bit like making your own newspaper, where the content changes as often as the feeds you subscribe to are updated.

The feeds for this site are all available in the right hand column of this page, or individually in the right hand columns of the sections they represent.