Meet RSS

Before I met RSS, I was addicted to drugs, wandering the streets, hanging out with the “wrong crowds,” and staying up too late on weeknights. But even in the midst of such wild living, I always had an RSS-shaped hole in my heart that left me empty and searching for something more—no matter how many hookers I’d seen, no matter how much cocaine I’d consumed, no matter how many times I’d checked the same away messages. Then one day, a Bright Orange Light shined down from the corner of a website. It looked like this:

Have you seen the Orange Light? RSS has been calling out to you for some time now. How long will you ignore the call of a loving RSS who wants to help you change your life? You’ve been living in darkness for so long now, and it’s time for you to make a big change. There’s no better time than now for you to make a decision for RSS, right here in this very place.

What is RSS, then? You’re curious, aren’t you? (You feel that RSS-shaped hole in your heart, perhaps?) Let me tell you about it. First of all, there’s an awe-inspiring mystery surrounding it—nobody really knows what it stands for. But that Light you’ve seen in the corners of websites as you’ve lived your hooker-filled lives–it’s been a sign to you. The Orange Light means the website is publishing a “Feed”, a comforting spirit, that will go with you wherever you go. It’s a free gift. You just have to accept it, by clicking on it.

“But what happens when I accept this offer of RSS?” It can be frightening to leave your old ways behind. But there’s more than just the Light and the Feed — there’s a third person to this RSS holy family—the Aggregator. (I know, it’s not very spiritual sounding, but this is all getting a bit confusing and bordering on heavy sacrilege, so allow me to use the real name for this part.) The Aggregator organizes the Feed(s) that you have collected as you’ve responded to the Light (clicked the orange RSS icons) across various websites. Aggregators keep all of your Feeds together, from blogs or news sites or sports sites or movies or just about anything that publishes the Spirit of RSS Feed.

The Aggregator I belong to is fairly conservative, with a great pastor and a kick-ass coffee and donut selection. It’s called Bloglines. And being the good little RSS evangelizer that I am, I’m inviting you to my Aggregator right now (we just so happen to be having an “Outreach Night”) so that you can see what it’s like to be an RSSian, up close and personal. Click the thumbnail below:

Along the left when you first come in you’ll see my list of Feeds. I’ve organized them by topic and can edit them whenever I like. When any of my websites updates, the Feed title becomes bold and the number of updates appears in parentheses. When you click on the Feed title, the right side of the screen fills with the most recent updates (DONOVANHOUSE in this example), with the first few lines of the most recent articles/posts/etc there to let you see what the update is like. If you are interested in it, you click the link and go directly to the site to read the rest. It’s that simple.

Now that you’ve seen what your life can be like with RSS, I hope you’ll make a decision. Go ahead, we’ll all bow our heads and keep our eyes closed just enough to let us peek around and watch to see if you raise your hand to say you’d like to make a decision for RSS tonight. Then, with your hand in the air, everyone will open their eyes and we’ll ask you to stand up and come down front, sign into Bloglines, make a free account, and begin to accept the Orange Light of Feeds you see all across the internet.

We’ll see you next week at the Aggregator. (Because the Aggregator was the “Church” in this allegory. Get it?)