RSS Parrot is a service that turns your Mastodon account into an RSS feed reader. To use it, you mention @birb@rss-parrot.net in a toot with the URL of the site you want to follow. This could be a blog with a dedicated RSS or Atom feed, a website, a Substack newsletter, a Bluesky profile, or a podcast.

Here’s how it works:

• RSS Parrot finds the RSS feed for the website. If it’s the first time someone has requested this site, it creates a new Mastodon account dedicated to it.

• This new account posts a toot every time there is a new post in the website’s feed. The account’s name is based on the website address, with dots separating each letter, and hosted on the rss-parrot.net server. For example, the account for taiwantrailsandtales.com would be @taiwantrailsandtales.com@rss-parrot.net.

• You then follow the RSS Parrot account to see the new posts in your timeline.

This allows you to stay updated on your favorite websites without leaving Mastodon.