Posted by Dave Lorenzo - Business Coach

Each week I cite Back in Skinny Jeans for the excellent description of how to subscribe to a blog with RSS. 

Stephanie has given me permission to share her information with all of my readers.

Once again here is her great post on how to subscribe to this blog using RSS.

How to Subscribe to this Blog with RSS

We all have busy lives with very little time. Web surfing is fun but can take hours going to visit every single website and blog you enjoy. Wouldn’t it be fabulous if you could just get all the headlines of the most current stories from all your favorite websites and blogs in one place?

Well now you can, and it is called RSS feed.

The technical acronym for RSS is “Really Simple Syndication”, an XML format that was created to syndicate news, and be a means to share content on the web. Now, to geeks and techies that means something special, but to everyday folks like you and me, what comes to mind is, “Uh, I don’t get it?”

So, to make RSS much easier to understand, you can think of RSS as an acronym for “Really Simple Syndication” or I’m “Ready for Some Stories”. It is a way online for you to get a quick list of the latest story headlines from all your favorite websites and blogs all in one place.

Suppose you have 50 sites and blogs that you like to visit regularly. Going to visit each website and blog everyday could take you hours. With RSS, you can “subscribe” to a website or blog, and get “fed” all the new headlines from all of these 50 sites and blogs in one list, and see what’s going on in minutes instead of hours. What a time saver!

That one place where your RSS list is created is called an RSS Reader, and it gathers all the headlines from all the websites and blogs you have subscribed to. In a moment, I will describe how to get an RSS Reader.

Subscribing to RSS feeds

But first, to “subscribe” to a website or blog’s RSS feed simply means that you are telling that website or blog, “Yes please. Send me your story headlines.” It’s like subscribing to a magazine or newsletter. Instead of getting a magazine or email, you will just get a list of headlines sent to your RSS reader. If the headline looks interesting to you, all you have to do is click on the headline and you’ll be sent to the whole story.

In order to subscribe to a website or blog’s RSS, all you have to do is click on an RSS symbol (that orange box on the right sidebar).You can also click to the text link of the words “ Click Here to Subscribe” on the website or blog.

Typically, you can find these RSS symbols or text links in your browser window, on the sides of the website page, or on the bottom of the page. The publishers of the websites and blogs really want people to subscribe to their RSS, so they will make it very easy for you to find the subscription links.

RSS Readers

Now, because nothing is ever standard on the web like dealing with different operating systems, Mac vs. PC, and different flavored browsers like Internet Explorer, AOL, Safari, and Firefox, the way to get an RSS reader will be dependent on what browser you like to use, and how accessible you’d like your RSS list(s) to be.

Just like there are flavors of web browsers, you may see and hear of different flavors of RSS XML feeders like RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0, and Atom. Again, the flavors are only important if you want to get techie. If you stick to looking for an RSS symbol (again, it’s a bright orange square – it looks like a piece if Ckicklet Gum) you will be fine.

If you’d like your RSS list to be accessible from any computer or mobile device you may have like a PDA, laptop, or cell phone, some popular RSS readers include that option (and almost all are FREE):

MyYahoo
MyMSN
MyAOL
MyGoogle
Bloglines
FeedDemon (this one costs money)
NewsGator (there is a cost for mobile accessibility)
NetVibes
PageFlakes
Shrook (For Mac users. Free trial and then there’s a cost.)
Lektora
Attensa (more for enterprise, and there’s a cost)

As you can see, there are a plethora of choices for you. All are good RSS readers, so your choice will simply come down to the style that appeals most to you.

RSS as Live Bookmarks

Browsers like Safari and Firefox allow you to subscribe to RSS feeds through the browser, and it’s called “live bookmarking”. Currently, you can only do live bookmarking in Internet Explorer if you have IE7. 

Once again, thanks to Stephanie from Back In Skinny Jeans for help in describing the RSS subscription process.

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