It's come to my attention that a few people want to subscribe to my blogs but don't know how. Wonder no longer! Here's my guide to RSS (I hope you have a salt shaker near because this guide should be taken with at least one or two grains.)
What is RSS? RSS stands for Read Some Stuff. Or Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary. Choose your own adventure here.
What does it do? All you need to know is that you tell the RSS what blogs you read, and it gets all of the latest blog updates, usually within about 30 minutes, and feeds them to you through your feed reader or feed aggregator. But let's keep it simple and call it a feed reader. See you later, aggregator.
What do you need? Besides the obvious -- a computer, Internet, an insatiable hunger for blogs like my own -- you need a feed reader, which is free (to compare different readers, click here.) I use google reader, and all of my subscriptions are categorized. It also shows me how many unread blog posts I have, so I can be sufficiently distracted when I'm trying to write my own blog post.
How do you set it up? I'm glad you asked. Follow these basic steps:
- Set up your feed reader. (Try newsgator, netvibes, google, etc.)
- Go to your favorite blog, and look for either an orange box icon
or something that says RSS, and click on it.
- Choose your reader.
- Go to your reader site to view all blogs.
Kirsten provides professional freelance writing services ranging from article assignment, web content, grant writing, ghost writing, creative writing and copy editing.
© Kirsten Lamb
I never knew about this before!! You're a genius for thinking of putting this on here. I will henceforth be as distracted as you *salute*
You are welcome. To be honest, you should also thank me for keeping the word "aggregator" out of my explanation. No one needs that word clogging up the brain pipes. Not to mention that I don't really know what it means ... :)
Thanks for setting me straight. I'm always embarrassed to ask questions (I know, I know - a question never asked ...) about something that appears obvious to everyone else. Now, I will get instant notification when you post a blog and won't have to be checking your website as often.
While I'm asking questions - what does the #writing mean in your twitter?
What a good question. This shall be my next blog. And you don't have to come back to find it, because your reader will feed it to you!
Or if you're Tracy Jordan, "mind grapes." And yes, I thank you for that as well :) It sounds like aggravator and that's negative enough.
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