Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is RSS?

A: RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication." It's a format that web sites and blogs can use to send updated headlines to you via services like My Yahoo!. My Yahoo! gathers the content you select from a variety of sources and displays it for you in one convenient location. Syndication means you don't have to visit each site individually to see what's new -- you simply scan headlines or brief article summaries and click to read the full text. That's the "really simple" part. And it's "really simple" for publishers to make their content accessible this way too.

Q: How can I use RSS?

A: Typically, people use RSS to:

Gather, read, or quickly scan frequently updated headlines from a variety of sources using a "News Aggregator" or "Newsreader" program.
Incorporate syndicated headlines into their personal weblogs (often called "blogs") as a way to display information from different publishers.
Blogs are web pages which typically consist of timestamped, frequently updated links to news items and web sites. Blogging has developed into an online publishing tool used for many purposes: traditional journalism, personal diaries, collaborative journals, digital note-taking, topical group discussion forums, and hybrid combinations.

Q: What happens if I try to add an RSS URL that is behind a firewall?

A: RSS files will not be able to pull syndicated feeds hosted behind firewalls. For example, if you subscribe to an internal company newsletter that is syndicated using RSS, you will not be able to read it via My Yahoo!