For those of you who may not know exactly what RSS is, or the list of blogs you read is slowly growing and you want a better way to keep up to date then this is the post for you.
I have put together a laymen’s terms introduction to what exactly an RSS feed is and easy ways for you to start subscribing to them.
What is RSS?
RSS most commonly stands for “Really Simple Syndication.” But in laymen’s terms an RSS Feed is just ‘all the latest content.’
Subscribing to an RSS Feed is like subscribing to a newspaper or magazine. You can get the latest content delivered to you without the hassle of disgruntled teenage newspaper delivery boys throwing the paper through your window or at your dog.
How To Subscribe to a Feed
In order to get the RSS Feed you need to have a program that will read and organize the content for you. Sort-of like a mailbox. Here are a couple programs you may want to check out if you are not already using an RSS Feed Reader.
Feed Readers
Web Based: Google Reader
Google Reader is a Web-Based Feed Reader. The advantage is that you can check your feed subscriptions at any computer with interent. All you need is a Google account.
Setup:
- Go to your Google account page and under “My Services” click on Reader.
- If you want to take the tour you can, otherwise start out by adding a subscription.
- If there are specific sites who’s feed you want to subscribe you have to enter that site’s feed address manually.
To get the Feed URL of a site simply go to that site and click on their RSS link. It will take you to a webpage. Copy the address of that webpage and put it into the “Add Subscription” box in Google Reader.
For Mac: NetNewsWire
I currently use NetNewsWire Lite. It’s free, easy and get’s the job done.
It was extremely easy to setup. Once you’ve downloaded and installed either the free lite version or the more feature rich full version, you can set up folders such as “Favorites”, “Technology”, “News”, “Friends”, etc…
To subscribe to a new feed in NetNewsWire you can either click on the ’subscribe’ button and enter the feed address or with NetNewsWire set as your default feed reader, when you go to a website and click on the RSS Feed Subscription button it will automatically bring up that feed in NetNewsWire and ask you if you want to subscribe. You can then move that subscription into whatever folder you want (FTSA into “Favorites” perhaps?).
For Windows: Omea Reader
I’m not a windows user and have never actually used Omea Reader, but after doing a little bit of research this seems to be a solid RSS Feed Reader. (I don’t know if it’s pronounced “Oh-may-a” or “Oh-mee-a”). Both sound a little funny to me.
Even the free version of Omea Reader seems to be very feature rich.
Thier website brags that the program is lightning-fast and organized. You can subscribe to feeds directly from your browser - just like NetNewsWire for Mac. Omea Reader also has the ability to directly download and organize podcasts will come in handy for those of you using Windows sans iTunes.
If Omea tickles your fancy, they’ve got what looks like an excellent tutorial page.
Phil Bowell said:
I believe on one of the Google Reader options pages there is a bookmarklet you can place in your bookmarks bar that will let you subscribe to an RSS feed for the site you are currently viewing. Similar to the ma.gnolia it! bookmarklets etc.
Posted on February 1, 2007 at 11:03 am
Nathan said:
A lot of the pages I’ve been aggregating in Google Reader are nearly automated now. Very easy to use. Glad to see this made it on FTSA. CBB
Posted on February 1, 2007 at 11:24 am
jeff said:
Hmmm. Can’t believe you left out Bloglines…
Posted on February 1, 2007 at 3:49 pm
Notes from the Trail » What the mess is RSS? said:
[…] For those of you wondering what the big deal about is, then you need to go to Shawn’s excellent entry. Bookmark to: Filed under: Goin’ to Town by Jeff @ February 1, 2007 | • There have been 1 followers of this trail besides you to date. | Top Possibly Related: •Moving on up… to the top… to a de-lux apartment in the sky&emsp•I love family picture time…&emsp•Keys please&emsp•I Wanted to Be a Millionaire&emsp […]
Posted on February 1, 2007 at 3:52 pm
Shawn said:
I’m sure you guys all have your favorite readers. I just picked the most popular web-reader I’m aware of, my own Mac program and then googled for windows readers.
However, if you guys want to plug what you use in the comments you are welcome to. I know I’d love to hear some other pros and cons and I bet others would too.
Posted on February 1, 2007 at 4:45 pm
Ronni said:
bloglines is a fav for me too.
Posted on February 1, 2007 at 6:26 pm
Shawn said:
What’s so great about bloglines?
Posted on February 1, 2007 at 10:04 pm
Amanda said:
Thank you for using “laymen’s terms”. I have never been able to get a straight answer about why you would want to use feeds or how they exactly work.
Posted on February 2, 2007 at 2:55 am
Ronni said:
Shawn, I’ve just used bloglines forever… it’s web based, you can use any platform, any computer… it will find most feeds for you (you don’t have to know the feed url), you can seperate and sort into folders, there are different notifiers you can use on your own platform, and they format it so you can read everything on your cell phone no matter what the platform.
Just my preference. Simple. Not too many bells and whistles but just enough.
Posted on February 2, 2007 at 5:23 am
Dirk said:
I just saw on http://www.jetbrains.com/omea/download/download.html
that the Omea Pro version is also free!
Posted on February 17, 2007 at 12:42 am
Are You New to Blogging? | Fighting to Stay Awake said:
[…] A Quick Guide to RSS and Feed Readers […]
Posted on March 7, 2007 at 2:35 pm
pick up our RSS feed... « {Steve & Amanda Offutt} said:
[…] explains how feeds work here and discusses the value of feeds […]
Posted on March 22, 2007 at 11:09 pm
Blogger Anxiety - Posting » Reader Appreciaton Project said:
[…] If you are worried about going over the heads of your target audience (such as talking technical), either refrain from making those kind of blog posts or find a blog where you can write about that stuff freely. You could always introduce your audience to technical things slowly such as things like RSS. […]
Posted on April 9, 2007 at 11:04 am