RSS and Feed Readers

So what's my trick? How can I keep track of all the blogs and still get my work done?  It's simple.  Actually it's "Really Simple Syndication" or RSS.

RSS is a way you can subscribe to your favorite blogs and have the information come instead of you going to check each blog daily (or more than once a day).

For a really great explanation take a look at this video "RSS in Plain English". It was created by CommonCraft.

RSS feeds are automatically generated.

To be able to collect the feeds in one spot, you need a Feed Reader or aggregator.  There are many aggregators available like My Yahoo, Bloglines, or Google Reader.  But how do you find these feeds? Again, it's simple.  Websites or blogs with feeds will let you know they have them. 

Most use one of these symbols:

or 

or words that say something like "subscribe to this feed". Can you find the feed for this post?

So let's go ahead and set up a Bloglines account so you can collect some feeds.

Step 1 - Go to Bloglines

Step 2 - Register for your free account.  Fill out the form on the right side of the page.  After you register, Bloglines will send a validation email to your account.  Click on the link provided.

Step 3 - Add some feeds!  The first page gives you some quick choices for feeds, pick a couple and click the subscribe to my selections button. On the left side, you'll see the ones you chose plus bloglines automatic feed. To see the feeds in the main box, click on feed name. 

Step 4 - Add some more feeds.  Go to your favorite blog and find the RSS symbol.  Click on it. Chose to subscribe using bloglines.  Scroll to the bottom of the next page you get and click subscribe.  Wasn't that easy?

Step 5 - See if you can find the feeds from the blogs mentioned in the first post and subscribe to them the same way. 

Leave a comment on your blog about this exercise.  Did you learn anything new? Do you think this will help?

Next up - Social Bookmarking

Comments

[Sharon]

Hi Kate,

Just finished with the RSS, I set one up with google/reader. Right now there are feeds for Pugs, News, Knitting, and Disney...hope it doesn't lead to to much leisure reading.