The technique that lets you use Outlook to keep track of all this changing information is called RSS, which stands for Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary. Outlook has a separate folder for receiving RSS feeds so you can organize the information in a way you find useful. You don’t really need to know how RSS works, but it’s good to know it’s available when it’s useful to you.
RSS information is delivered in something called a feed. As appetizing as that sounds, it’s not very filling. In fact, it’s not even edible. A feed is just a mechanism for updating information as it changes. Blogs and podcasts usually offer RSS feeds that allow you to keep track of new entries or episodes.
RSS technology lets you subscribe to information that changes frequently so it automatically updates itself. For example, most news organizations, such as The Wall Street Journal and Reuters, offer RSS feeds of their news stories. When you want to see the latest headlines, you don’t need to open a website. Just check the RSS Feeds folder to look for any headlines that interest you. Every time a new story is posted to the respective website, the story also shows up in the RSS feed.
If you’re going to try out RSS in Outlook, you might need to make a small settings change in Outlook so the RSS folder will work as it should. Follow these steps:

Blogs, podcasts, and news organizations are three important segments of the social media world. You can ignore any of them if you want, but chances are that you’re reading or viewing many of them already.
As you can with news services and podcasts, you can use Outlook to subscribe to your favorite blogs so you can stay up to date with the newest entries without having to surf all over the Internet to find out what’s new.

The term podcast is misleading. Lots of people think they can only listen to podcasts with a digital music player. Others don’t listen to as many podcasts as they might enjoy because podcasts are a little bit cumbersome to find, download, and play. While podcasts were originally designed to be played on portable devices, many people listen to podcasts on their computers. If your computer can run Outlook, it can also play podcasts.
Outlook enables you to get any podcasts to which you’ve subscribed and organize them with the same tools you use for organizing email.

Bloggers have become the preferred source of news for many people today. They can also be a monumental waste of time if you spend your whole day surfing from one blog to the next. Outlook can make that process more efficient for you by giving you one place to read all your blogs and keep up with the latest gossip. Oh — and with important news, too!
You can use Outlook to read your favorite blogs, as well as more official-looking RSS feeds like news services.
Faithe Wempen, M.A., is a Microsoft Office Master Instructor and the author of over 150 books on computer technology, including Outlook 2019 for Dummies and PowerPoint Bible. She is also a CompTIA A+ certified PC technician and an adjunct Computer Technology instructor at Purdue University. Her online courses in Office applications and digital literacy have educated over a quarter of a million students for corporate clients.
Bill Dyszel is a nationally known expert on personal information management and sales automation technology. He frequently speaks at various technology conferences, and he works as a consultant for organizations that need help selecting, developing, and implementing business solutions.
Dummies has always stood for taking on complex concepts and making them easy to understand. Dummies helps everyone be more knowledgeable and confident in applying what they know. Whether it's to pass that big test, qualify for that big promotion or even master that cooking technique; people who rely on dummies, rely on it to learn the critical skills and relevant information necessary for success.
Copyright © 2000-2025 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., or related companies. All rights reserved, including rights for text and data mining and training of artificial technologies or similar technologies.
© 2025 MARVEL

source