, and add the feeds you find interesting. We’re excited to announce that we’ve begun maintaining our newsletter online. Now our subscribers can find out about updates to our newsletter and site without having to browse to it themselves to check. Now, when you subscribe to our newsletter using RSS, you will be able to get the content that you want without having to worry about spam. The information will not go to your email box; it will go to a news feeder. You can subscribe or unsubscribe to whatever content you want.
Just like when you want to watch a video clip or listen to music on the web, you need a "player" of some kind to subscribe to feeds. The good news is, there are number of these tools available, and many of them are either totally free or free to try out.
The "player" for a feed is called a feed reader. (Or sometimes it's called a news reader or RSS reader or RSS client. All these terms mean the same thing.) This tool lets you subscribe to any feeds you want, checks automatically to see when they're updated, and then displays the updates for you as they arrive.
Feed readers come in two varieties: web-based, or as an installable program. If you use one of the web-based readers, you can access your feeds from anywhere you go, just by signing into the website that manages your feeds. If you use a feed reading program that installs on your computer, your feeds can be stored for you even if you're not connected to the Internet.
For web-based feed readers, many people choose Bloglines or NewsGator Online, both of which are free services designed specifically for reading feeds. My Yahoo! allows you to subscribe to feeds and have them display within your custom page as well.
If you prefer a feed reading program that you can install on your computer, you can use FeedDemon or NewsGator for Microsoft Outlook if you're on Microsoft Windows. Both tools are made by the same company as NewsGator online, so you can switch between these programs and the web-based reader at any time. Microsoft Windows users will have support for feeds in the upcoming version 7 of Internet Explorer.
If you're on a Macintosh running OS X, the most popular feed reader is NetNewsWire, which can also connect to the web-based services. Mac users can also use the built-in support for feeds in the Safari web browser in OS X 10.4, and anyone using the Mozilla Firefox web browser has support for feeds built-in, as well.
Once you've got a tool to
read feeds, you'll want to find some feeds worth reading. Many of the tools
listed above provide built-in feeds to get you started. Then, as you visit
other sites on the web, you can keep your eyes open for links that say XML or
RSS or Syndication, or for that orange button that
says RSS or
, and add the feeds you find interesting.
You will find the RSS URL for the site by clicking on one of these buttons or links. This will most likely take you to a page with a lot of ugly text on it. Never mind the text, just copy the URL that appears in the URL window for the page and use that URL to subscribe to the site in your newsfeed reader. MacOS Safari users may find that clicking on "Syndicate this site" prompts a download of an index.rdf file rather than opening a new browser window. If this happens try using your mouse to right-click over the link and choose "Open Link in New Window".
Rather than manually checking in on all of the weblogs, newletters or news sites that you enjoy, you can instead use a newsfeed reader program that will compile all of the latest headlines and excerpts of your favorite sites that have enabled RSS. With a newsfeed reader you now control the content you receive. Then as often as you want, check the newsfeed reader as you would check your email. All without having to sift through the piles of SPAM that is becoming an increasing burden in today’s world.