Week 4: RSS & Newsreaders

Once you complete this exercise, you have tackled the most difficult of all 23 Things!

Listen to the introduction to rss podcast:


powered by ODEO

Have you heard of RSS? Have you seen those small funny tags on websites? Have you heard others talking about RSS but still have no idea what it is? Don't worry; according to a recent survey you're still in the majority, but this is changing rapidly. In the information world RSS is not only revolutionalizing the way news, media and content creators share information, but it also is swiftly changing the way everyday users are consuming information.

There are many RSS icons out there - here are some typical examples of what you might see:



RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication" - it's a file format for delivering regularly updated information over the web. Just think about the websites and news information sources you visit every day. It takes time to visit those sites and scour the ad-filled and image-loaded pages for just the text you want to read, doesn't it? Now imagine if you could visit all those information sources and web pages in just one place and all at the same time without being bombarded with advertising, without having to search for new information on the page that you have already seen or read before, and without having to consume a lot of time visiting each site individually. Would that be valuable to you? Well, its available now through a newsreader and RSS.

This weeks discovery exercises focus on learning about RSS news feeds and setting up a Bloglines account (Bloglines is a free online newsreader) for yourself to bring your feeds together.

Discovery Resources:

1. Using Bloglines Tutorial (how to keep up with dozens of blogs everyday) - This online tutorial walks you through how to set up a Bloglines account and add newsfeeds. Follow Steps 1 to 3f to set up your Bloglines account.
   
   Steps 4 to 9 are optional and cover how to subscribe to different types of feeds (podcasts, Flickr albums, etc. Please ignore Feedster; they are no longer in business).
   
   
2. Your co-workers - tap into their knowledge and work through the RSS process together!
   

Discovery Exercise:

Go to bloglines.com and create an account. Bloglines is a free service to manage your RSS feeds.

Although extremely useful - Everything below this point is optional:

Make your bloglines account publicly available: This is done so that others can see your site and the feeds you have subscribed to. Important! You should make note of your bloglines public URL; this is what you need if you want to direct others to your bloglines page to share the feeds and blogs you subscribe to.

Steps to make your bloglines account public:
(Note: Click any image to enlarge it.)