In an earlier post on learning more about Google, Jill briefly mentioned RSS feeds/aggregators. RSS feeds are great and you should look into them, especially if you like to read your news online or you check a bunch of different blogs. Hopefully this post will explain what RSS feeds and aggregators are, why they are AWESOME, and how you can get one. For the visually inclined, I’ve included a wonderful video from the creative folks at Common Craft.
Before you get an RSS Aggregator:
You probably check your blogs dailyto see if something new has been posted. Maybe you read the New York Times daily, also to see if there is news. If you regularly read five blogs and one newspaper, you only have to remember to check six websites daily. That’s no soo bad. If you read twenty blogs and three papers online, then you have to check twenty-three website daily. That’s getting to be a little tedious.
Deciding to get an RSS aggregator:
Imagine if you could subscribe to those blogs and online papers, like you do to the Herald-Sun or News & Observer or you favorite magazine. The new edition shows up in your mailbox without you having to ask for it.
An RSS aggregator does the same thing, but with websites like The New York Times and blogs.
After you get an RSS aggregator:
Blissfully you sit down at your computer in the morning. You sign into your bloglines.com account and skim through the excerpts of your favorite blogs and the headlines from The Washington Post. You click on the new articles and posts that interest, easily ignoring the ones that don’t. You’ve just saved ten minutes by not having to check those blogs with no new articles. Life on the ‘net reading blogs is perfect.
To see this visually, watch this video from Common Craft.
Where you get RSS aggregators:
There are a number of providers of RSS aggregators. Web-based email providers like Google have their own aggregators. Poke around your email to find it and remember you don’t always have to have an email account with someone to use their aggregator (Google allows you to use GoogleReader without a gmail account). Another popular aggregator is bloglines.
Browsers like Internet Explorer and Firefox are also providing add-ons that act as aggregators. Firefox has a neat one that runs the new blog or news posts like a newsfeed at the bottom or the top of the browser. I think it’s neat, but it could easily annoy another person so check out different aggregators to see what you like. Remember, bloglines and GoogleReader will be accessible from anywhere with a web connection. If your aggregator is your browser window, it will only work on your home computer.
Wikipedia has a nice list of aggregators if you want to see more.
Give one a try–you’ll be happy you did!
–Jennifer
