Item 7: RSS & Newsreaders - Explore Bloglines

You’ve heard of RSS? You’ve seen those small funny tags on websites? You’ve heard co-workers and acquaintances swear by it, but still have no idea what RSS is? Well 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.

RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” and is 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-heavy 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 you’d 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, it’s available now through a newsreader and RSS.

1. As with many 2.0 technologies, understanding may come easier through practice than explanation, but it's good to have some basic ideas about RSS Feeds before you get started. Read through these two articles for an introduction:
   • How and Why To Use RSS Feeds
   • Order From Chaos Via RSS
   • Also, watch this short (3.5 minutes) video about RSS: RSS in Plain English The video is a nice, quick introduction to the why and how of RSS feeds, and makes the whole process seem less daunting.
2. Go to Bloglines, and then click on the thing that says "Sign Up Now, It's Free."
3. Once you're at the "My Feeds" page, you'll want to be able to work it so that you can return to that page quickly. If you have a computer all to yourself, then you can (if you use Firefox) drag and drop the URL (of that page) onto your Bookmark Toolbar, either by itself or into your folder of pages you open every day, or if you're still using Internet Explorer, then put the My Feeds page into your Favorites. If you use a shared computer, then you might organize with the other users of that computer to have a link to the Bloglines main page put on the browser, so it's easy to get to it and sign in to your account.
   
4. When you first go to your Bloglines account (the main page at Bloglines, after you've signed in, but before you've selected any of your feeds to view) there will be "help" style information in the central section of the page. Look down on the list under "Subscribe To It." Just follow the directions.
   
5. Get more Feeds.
   • When you are on a site that has an RSS feed, you can click "Sub With Bloglines," and add that feed to your Bloglines list.
   • In Firefox, any site with an RSS feed has an icon in the address bar that looks like a square with three radiating lines coming out of one corner.
   • In Firefox or IE, pages that have RSS feeds often advertise that fact with various icons that say "RSS" on them.
   • Sometimes when you click "Sub With Bloglines," you will get a list of several different feeds. Just choose one of these feeds - if it's not obvious which one, look for the feed that has the most subscribers.

Activities:

• Subscribe to 10 or more newsfeeds:
• the FVRL Discovery 2.0 feed
• at least 2 newsfeeds from other participants in FVRL's Discover 2.0 program
• several others of your choice. You can find a variety of lists and packages at Bloglines. Pick things that look interesting. You can always edit later and get rid of feeds that you don't like, and add others that you do like.

• Finally, go to your blog, and write a post about RSS and Bloglines. What are your thoughts so far? RSS feeds can be used to send out information of any kind, to anyone who subscribes to it. How can you use RSS feeds?