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Feed Readers: Take Advantage of Them!
By Nick | May 22, 2008
Have you ever been reading someone’s blog and seen the acronym RSS and wondered what it was? If you read a lot of blogs, I am sure you know what I am talking about, but have you taken advantage of the power that the RSS feed offers? If you haven’t, do it…your life will be changed forever!
Read on if you are interested in learning why…if you don’t, my feelings won’t be hurt.
RSS means Really Simple Syndication. What is it though? RSS is a simple way to gather posts from multiple actively posted websites into one location. It’s sort of like a one-stop shop for blog reading freaks (like me).
For months I have been jumping from site to site trying to get my fix on all my favorite blogs all while pulling my hair out because of the length of time it takes. I had to open up my list of favorites, navigate to the first blog, read it, open up my favorites again, navigate to the next one, read it, etc., etc., etc. Enter the feed reader.
A feed reader is a way to consolidate all of the blogs you are interested so that you can read them in one place. Brilliant, I tell you! I feel like an idiot for not taking advantage of this sooner.All you have to do is sign up for a free feed reading service (see below for links), then subscribe to your favorite blogs by entering their feed URL (found easily on most blogs) and viola…you are well on your way to reducing your time spent navigating to the sites. As new posts are made to the respective blogs, you will get an alert in your feed reader interface that allows you to read the new post(s) right there! Feed readers are the way to go… I highly recommend them.Here are some links to free RSS aggregators.
www.google.com/reader www.feedreader.com
There are tons more out there, pick the one you like best and subscribe!
Topics: News, Web Stuff | 5 Comments »
May 23rd, 2008 at 6:48 am
So which one did you choose to use? You are late catching the boat on this one ;)
I use google reader – easy to use, updates the fastest, and “I Like I A Lot” (in my best Dumb & Dumber Jim Carrey voice)!
Hope you have an awesome holiday weekend – we are packing the kids up and heading to Hatteras – so I know we will!
May 26th, 2008 at 9:31 am
I can’t help but read ‘Feed Readers’ as ‘Freed Eaters’ which for some reason puts me into mind of Soylent Green…which then begs the question, if stuck on a deserted island with you blogroll, whom do you eat first?
It also makes me think wouldn’t a great place to be stranded a ‘desserted island’ with tangerine trees and marmalade skies, a blogrolls filled with rich chocolately nuget?
The word ‘nuget’ makes me think of Ted Nugent who is only filled with CRAZY…so much so it’s oozing out of his ears.
I wouldn’t want to eat Ted Nugent.
Feed Read me Seymour.
May 28th, 2008 at 6:26 am
The only downside, if I may, is that right now my feed reads “740 unread.”
Before, I wasted a lot of time hopping around, but I was blissfully ignorant to just how far behind I was catching up. Granted, I have my Flickr pals on my feeds, and sometimes people upload 50+ pictures.
But still!
I’m waiting on the post where you tell me how we all make money doing this. Not plugging products, mind you. But sitting and reading great blogs.
May 29th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Rss feeds saved my life. Heh. Kidding but they sure make blogging a lot easier to manage.
June 17th, 2008 at 8:39 am
“…while pulling my hair out because of the length of time it takes. I had to open up my list of favorites, navigate to the first blog, read it, open up my favorites again, navigate to the next one, read it, etc., etc., etc. Enter the feed reader.”
wow….well someone is spoiled by the speed of the internet generation. nothing will ever be fast enough.