Using RSS Feeds

Using RSS Feeds can make your life so much simpler and consolidate information you want to read (but frequently don’t – due to the effort and time required to visit scores of websites to see new info.)

The Basics

In a nutshell you use RSS (Really Simple Syndication) to syndicate or subscribe to the feed of a website, blog or almost any media content online (not just articles, it can be music, video or almost any digital media).

By syndicating, you subscribe to the feed of the site, which means you do not have to go visit the website to read the latest content. Instead you use feed reading software or a website to read the latest content.

The place to start is with a reader.

I recommend (and use) Google Reader – which for me was a no-brainer because of gmail and all of my other Google services.

However, there are many other feed reading software programs out there, so you can start by checking your own email service (Yahoo…) or do a Google search for RSS reader which will bring up many other options.

There is no reason to pay for software when there are so many free options.

Subscribing to a Blog

Once you have your reader account set-up, you can begin adding feeds.

At Google you can start quickly with bundled feeds (for news and the like), or you can search for feeds by keywords.

Another cool feature of Google Reader is that you can keep up with your friends at the same time using Google’s special connection with Blogger, Flickr, MySpace and other social sites.

Most blogs and websites (especially news related) have a link which you can subscribe to. Look for the orange symbol to find the link.

Enjoy!