The estimated reading time for this post is 6 minutes
The Wonder of Tech is honored to welcome guest author and fellow blogger Adrienne Smith. Many of you know Adrienne from her blog, AdrienneSmith.net, where she does a brilliant job helping others with blogging, tech, marketing and life in general.
When you subscribe to a blog, online newspaper, journal or magazine, or Google Alerts, you have an option besides receiving email updates: you can use RSS feeds. Some people prefer to use RSS feeds to avoid clogging up their email inbox and be able to use an RSS reader to read articles. (RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication )
Adrienne, a whiz at RSS feeds, kindly agreed to do a guest post with a video showing Wonder of Tech readers how to use RSS feeds with Google Reader.
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For those of you who don’t know me, I love to help people learn. Carolyn and I met through blogging and I have a feeling I’ve helped her about as much as she’s helped me. I love to call her the Tech Queen because to me, she’s all that and more.
She recently wrote a post titled “On Alert With Google Alerts” and in that post she shared with her readers how to send those alerts to email or to your RSS feeds. Now because Carolyn loves to help people as much as I do, she asked if I would share this information with you today, just in case any of you aren’t familiar with how to subscribe and read RSS feeds.
I decided it would be so much easier to just walk you through not only how to subscribe and read RSS feeds but also how to:
- set them up in Google Alerts,
- unsubscribe to feeds
- set up folders
- rename the feeds
- how to know when there is a new post and
- what do do if you subscribe to a feed and the subscription doesn’t appear.
Carolyn’s Google Alerts article describes how to sign up for Google Alerts using RSS feeds plus this video shows you how at the 1:00 mark.
Subscribing to RSS Feeds
To subscribe using RSS feeds, as shown at the 2:00 mark of the video, click on this symbol on the website:
This button takes you to Feedburner where you have a choice of feed readers to use. Google Reader was voted the most popular RSS reader by 63% of the voters in a poll by Lifehacker. In second place was Reeder, an app discussed at the bottom of this post. Google Reader is free with your Google account.
You can click “Add to Reader” and you will be taken to your Google Reader account where the subscription will appear (as seen at 2:30 on the video).
Using Google Reader
To access Google Reader directly, go to your Google account and click on “More” at the top of the page and choose “Reader” from the menu. Your Reader page will appear:
Your feeds and folders appear in the left column. The titles in bold have unread articles in them. and the number in parenthesis next to the title is the number of unread articles for that title.
You can manage your feeds by clicking on the down arrow in your reader next to the name of the feed (3:30 in the video). The drop-down menu will give you options such as unsubscribe, rename, translate into my language and others. You can also use this arrow to sort the articles by date or by read vs. unread articles (called “Sort by Magic”).
Using Folders in Google Reader
To help organize your feeds, you can use folders (see 4:10 of the video). As you subscribe to more feeds you may find having them all on your Reader’s home page is a bit overwhelming, so using folders can help keep your Reader organized. This can be especially helpful if you’re reading your articles from the small screen of a smartphone.
To create a new folder, click on the arrow next to a feed and scroll to the bottom of the menu to New Folder. Your folders will appear in the left column and you can either drag and drop your feeds into the folders or use your menu to assign feeds to a folder.
Handy RSS Tip
If you click on the RSS feed icon at a website, you may get crazy looking text like this:
Don’t panic, there’s an easy solution (6:00 in the video). This means that the owner of the website has not set up its feed with Feedburner. To get the feed into your reader:
- Copy the web address (URL) of the page with the jumbled text,
- Go back into Google Reader,
- Hit the red “Subscribe” button in the upper left corner,
- Paste the URL into the box that appears and
- Click Add.
The feed will appear in your reader and you will be subscribed to the RSS feed.
Now we have the blogs covered right! So who best to share with us how you can read your RSS feeds on your mobile or hand held devices but the “Queen of Tech” herself. Carolyn is definitely the pro on this.
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RSS Mobile
One of the advantages of subscribing using RSS feeds is that you can easily access your subscriptions on your mobile devices. There are two ways of accessing your Google Reader on your mobile device:
- Going through your mobile browser to the Google Reader website or
- Using an app
Web Browser
You can access your RSS feeds by going to the Google Reader website on your mobile browser. You will see the familiar set-up of the Google Reader page that you see on your computer, complete with folders. You can manage your feeds from this site, though it is more easily done on a tablet such as an iPad, than on a the smaller screen of a smartphone.
Apps
The easiest way to read your RSS feeds on your mobile device is by using an app. For iOS, Reeder is the gold standard for RSS feed readers. The app has separate versions for the iPhone and iPad though the iPhone version will work on the iPad. If you use your iPad a lot for reading feeds, you may want to spring for the iPad version. The iPhone/iPod Touch version of Reeder is available for $2.99 and the iPad version is available for $4.99 in the iTunes App Store.
For Android devices, check out gReader. This colorful app is easy and intuitive to use and has many features such as the ability to read the articles when you’re offline. A Pro version of the app is available for $5.19 that’s ad-free and syncs with podcasts as well as articles.
Additional Google Reader Tools
To customize the look and feel of your Google Reader, check out this helpful article from Lifehacker: Supercharge Google Reader with Styles and Extensions.
Bottom Line
If you’re looking for an easy way to manage your subscriptions to blogs, journals, newspapers and Google Alerts, use Google Reader.
Do you use RSS feeds? Do you use Google Reader? Have you been looking for ways to manage your subscriptions? Let us know in the Comments section below!
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Many thanks to Adrienne for this fantastic article and video. She did a marvelous job explaining and showing how to use RSS feeds. If you haven’t checked out her amazing blog, you should certainly head over to AdrienneSmith.net and check it out.
Adrienne’s Bio:
Adrienne Smith confesses to be a self-proclaimed social media, blogging, internet marketing and personal development fanatic. Guilty as charged… She enjoys helping others achieve success online so any tips she shares on her blog, she hopes you’ll find beneficial.
Anneliz Hannan says
Terrific tip on how to read the RSS feed when feedburner is not connected. I use the reader daily but now I can clean out my email with this new tip. Thank you for simplifying my cataloging.
Carolyn Nicander Mohr says
Hi Anneliz, Yes, Adrienne did a great job with this post. We’re very fortunate to have her here at The Wonder of Tech! Her helpful hint about how to subscribe to feeds even when Feedburner isn’t connected will be very useful to many Wonder of Tech readers.
Thanks for stopping by and letting us know how this article helped you, Anneliz!
Adrienne says
Thank you ladies and so glad to hear that this post was helpful. It’s definitely a pleasure to be here.
~Adrienne
Harleena Singh says
Nice to see you here Adrienne! So glad you had her over Carolyn!
I think your video was wonderful, and explains a great deal, some things which are new to me, while a few things I already knew.
To be very honest, I have always subscribed to the various blogs through email as that is what I check more often, but yes, it does get my inbox crowded. I did know about Google reader and had tried it out once long back then given up on it, but have never really tried it out to this extent, perhaphs I never knew so much! 🙂
I love the ideas of making folders and keeping your bloggers well listed, which was what I was doing long back. But I stopped as some blog used to have those codes etc, and I never knew how to get those sorted out that you explained so well.
I didn’t understand one small thing though. Towards the end you mentioned that we go to our inbox>more>google reader from there. But do we have to subscribe to the bloogers emails get the RSS feeds in the reader? ( I don’t think so, or perhaphs I am not clear about it)
This has indeed been an informative video for me, and I think I am going to head right over to Google reader now and get started right away!
Thanks so much for sharing this wonderful post Adrienne, and it’s been a pleasure to learn so much from your blog each time Carolyn. 🙂
Carolyn Nicander Mohr says
Hi Harleena, Adrienne responded to you below, but I just wanted to add that you don’t have to subscribe to email in addition to RSS feeds (unless you want new posts to show up both places). You do need a Google account to use Google Reader though.
I hope that clears things up. 🙂
Adrienne says
Now that’s a darn big picture Carolyn. Yikes!!! lol…
Thanks for sharing this information and hope your readers will find it helpful. I’m honored to be here on your blog and sharing this information. I use to be so confused about RSS feeds and it took me awhile to figure this all out as well.
I love how you can also show us how to read them on the mobile devices. You are most definitely the expert in that area young lady.
Thank you for having me Carolyn.
~Adrienne
Adrienne says
Hi Harleena,
If you choose to subscribe to their RSS feeds via email then that’s how they will be delivered. You will be sent an email notifying you that they have a new post. That’s the difference. Me personally, I don’t want that many emails coming to me since I want to check for updates when I have the time.
Hope that helps and thanks for your wonderful comment.
~Adrienne
Carolyn Nicander Mohr says
Hi Adrienne, Thanks again for your great work with this guest post! You have helped me so much since I met you and now you are helping Wonder of Tech readers. I appreciate you! RSS feeds can be confusing but you made everything very clear in this article.
I actually reduced the size of your picture a bit, but I can reduce it more if you’d like. I love seeing your smiling face here at The Wonder of Tech! (*)
Harleena Singh says
Absolutely love to see your smiling face Adrienne!
Thanks so much Carolyn & Adrienne for clarifying things about the feeds through the emails and Reader. I guess I will have to first unsubscribe (emails) from all places and then just put up the feeds to the reader.
Thanks 🙂
Carolyn Nicander Mohr says
Hi Harleena, Don’t unsubscribe to email notices on your favorite blogs yet. Try RSS feeds for a couple of weeks to see if you like reading articles on Google Reader. It’s a personal preference and if you find that RSS feeds don’t suit you, then you still have your email subscriptions easily available. If you find that RSS feeds work for you, then you can unsubscribe.
I read some blogs, articles and Tumbler posts through Google Reader but others I enjoy more using email subscriptions. Sometimes I forget to check my Google Reader but I never forget to check my email. Some blogs I have both email subscriptions and RSS subscriptions so I discover new posts instantly through email, but can read them conveniently on my iPad if I’m away from my computer.
Harleena Singh says
Point noted Caroyln 🙂
Will do just as you say and try it out for a few weeks then.
Thanks once again 🙂
Adrienne says
I just appreciate you inviting me over Carolyn and I’m happy to help your readers in an area I’m familiar with. I’m happy to know that I was able to make this a little more clear.
Yeah, maybe a little more. That turned out pretty big. Maybe because I don’t particularly like looking at myself.. lol…
Thanks Carolyn, I really do appreciate you!
sureshpeters says
Hey ! Great post . ! it took me 3 days to figure out about the RSS secrets 😉 . The awesome thing is , we can export the RSS subscription all and we can send this to others as well.
Adrienne says
Hey Suresh,
Wonderful to see you and I KNOW what you mean. I was very embarrassed once I found out how RSS feeds really work. Now I don’t know what I’d do without them.
Thanks for stopping by.. Always a pleasure to see you.
Carolyn Nicander Mohr says
Hi Suresh, You’re right, RSS feeds can be confusing, which is why it’s so great to have Adrienne here to explain it all. She is fantastic with explaining complex tech in understandable terms. Perfect for The Wonder of Tech!
Thanks so much for stopping by, Suresh, and sharing your experienced with us!
sureshpeters says
Hey Carolyn, You should try some Rss reader app in the new ipad. I Used to go through all of the feed items before i sleep every day. Even you can create google alerts and subscribe them via rss subscriber .
have you tried it ??
CarolB says
Thanks for this awesome post! I am bookmarking it as I definitely need to learn more about RSS feeds. Don’t know much about them, and this will help me finally figure them out.
Adrienne says
My pleasure Carol and if you run into any problems, you know where to find me! Always eager to help. Have fun!
Carolyn Nicander Mohr says
Hi Carol, We’re lucky to have Adrienne here to explain RSS feeds so clearly. The common theme to the comments seems to be that RSS feeds are confusing, so you’re not alone. Definitely check back here when you’re ready to tackle them. Adrienne’s post will be ready and waiting for you! 🙂
Simon says
RSS feeds… I can’t figure them out. One minute I see them as quite dated (simply because they’ve been around for so long). But on the other hand, they’re still as relevant as ever – because we still have multiple sources of info on the internet that I want to keep up with. Social networks haven’t solved the problem at all.
Adrienne says
RSS feeds are fabulous for keeping tabs on the blogs you enjoy visiting the most Simon. So much better than having your inbox inundated with tons of emails.
Thanks for your comment and hope you’ll start loading your feed up with some great blogs to read. Especially Carolyn’s.
~Adrienne
Praveen Rajarao says
Carolyn – It is nice of you having Adrienne over here. This post has been made very well and thanks to both of your efforts.
Adrienne – The concept of RSS is indeed confusing and when i was new, i spent a while to understand what it was all about. Hope you made this video earlier and was how i wish i knew where to find such information. Would have saved so much time for sure:-)
Adrienne says
Hey Praveen,
I’m with you, it took me quite some time to understand it as well.
I wish I had stumbled upon a video like this explaining what it was much earlier myself. Sure would have saved me a whole lot of time. Oh well, we learn as we go right!
Thanks Praveen for your comment…
Carolyn Nicander Mohr says
Hi Praveen, You’re right, RSS feeds can be difficult to understand, but Adrienne did a fabulous job of making things clear for us. I also wish I had Adrienne’s guidance with RSS when I first started to use feeds.
But the good news is that she can share her wisdom with those just getting started with feeds and they can benefit from her sharing her knowledge with us here.
Bill Dorman says
Hello Adrienne, nice to meet you; my name is Bill. Good to see you at Carolyn’s….:).
The good thing is, RSS feeds and Google Reader is something I have pretty good experience with. I had to shift a lot of my original follows from my work e-mail to my personal e-mail because I had no idea how much traffic it was going to create.
Good info indeed; thanks for sharing.
Adrienne says
Well hello there Mr. Dorman, fancy meeting you over here. Always a pleasure to see you.
Glad you have this one down for sure. It can get overwhelming that’s for sure. I would much rather subscribe to an RSS feed then by email. I get enough of that as it is.
Thanks Bill and hope you’re enjoying your week.
~Adrienne
Carolyn Nicander Mohr says
Hi Bill, Yes, you don’t want to clog your work email with subscription notices, so RSS feeds would be a great solution for you.
Thanks for stopping by and welcoming Adrienne here, Bill!
Aasma says
Hi Adrienne,
Nice work, I generally use Google reader to subscribe blogs… though I wasn’t aware that you can subscribe to your Google Alerts by using RSS Feed. Now on I’ll subscribe to Google Alerts using Google Reader. I think RSS Feed is great way to check any detailed information and article.
Adrienne says
Hi Aasma,
Thank you, glad you enjoyed this video and that you learned something new. Always appreciate your feedback.
~Adrienne
Carolyn Nicander Mohr says
Hi Aasma, Yes, you can use RSS reader with your Google Alerts. You can only use your Google Reader with it though, but that’s what most people use anyway.
I’m so glad this article helped you, Aasma. Thanks for stopping by and letting us know! 🙂
Andrew says
very interesting post i really enjoy learning about new things thank you for sharing this post with us.
Adrienne says
You’re very welcome Andrew.
Carolyn Nicander Mohr says
You’re welcome, Andrew. We’re all so pleased Adrienne could be a guest author today! 🙂
Sherryl Perry says
Great post Adrienne. RSS feeds is a great topic and one that does not have to be overwhelming. I’ve written about this before but I have to admit that your use of video to walk people through it was a much better choice (along with the text of course). Thumbs up to this post. I’m off to share!
Adrienne says
Hey Sherryl,
RSS feeds is a great topic and you are right, it doesn’t have to be overwhelming when you understand how to use them.
I thought the video might be a little more helpful so glad you enjoyed it. I appreciate you sharing this one Sherryl.
Enjoy your day okay!
~Adrienne
Carolyn Nicander Mohr says
Hi Sherryl, Yes, Adrienne did a great job. Her videos always are very helpful in explaining how to use tech. I appreciate the great job she did with this post.
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts, Sherryl! 🙂
Mayura says
Great tutorial for people who wanna figure out how to deal with feed using Google Reader 🙂 I love the way, how you instructed about dealing with raw XML feed. Specially most blog readers get confused when they see a raw XML feed. You know, they just ignore it without knowing what’s next. This is a great resource for them 🙂 And I wanna try out gReader on my mobile too 🙂
Thanks Adrienne and Carolyn 🙂
Have a Wonderful Day…
Cheers…
Adrienne says
Hi Mayrua,
I know what you mean about the raw feed. It freaked me out the first time but I just played with it until I could figure it out and it worked. That’s why it’s best for people to set up their feeds through Feedburner because you won’t have that problem.
Appreciate you stopping by, thanks for that…
~Adrienne
Carolyn Nicander Mohr says
Hi Mayura, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! Yes. Adrienne’s tip about getting jumbled feeds into your Reader is a great one. I didn’t know about that. Adrienne truly is an RSS Master! 🙂
Leora Wenger says
Adrienne, teaching people how to do RSS feeds is a great topic – thank you for covering it. I asked by a show of hands how many people know what an RSS feed is at my LinkedIn presentation last week, and I was surprised that only two out of a whole roomful raised their hands.
Carolyn, thanks for having Adrienne as a guest.
Adrienne says
Wow Leora, only two knew what they were? I was once one of those people.
Glad you enjoyed this post. Thanks!!!
~Adrienne
Carolyn Nicander Mohr says
Hi Leora, Wow, that’s interesting! I’m not surprised that so few people knew about RSS feeds. They aren’t well known and even those who know about them may very well be confused about using them!
I am so grateful to Adrienne for explaining about RSS feeds so clearly here. Her post will help a lot of people!
Thanks for stopping by and leaving your fascinating comment, Leora! 🙂
Freddie says
I’ve really learned a lot of good things about rss feeds here. When will you be updating your blog? Thank you very much for sharing this information to everyone. It is truly a great pleasure to read posts from here.
Carolyn Nicander Mohr says
Hi Freddie, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! I’m so glad you liked Adrienne’s post.
I update The Wonder of Tech regularly, every day or two. Stay tuned for more fun and useful tech!
Sylviane Nuccio says
Great guest post, Adrienne!
Feedburner is really my favorite RSS feed. Showing all these steps using is video is really the best way you can show people where to go and what to do.
I have been to Carol’s blog a few times and I always wonder where did she learn all that?
Thank you so much to both of you for this fantastic post 🙂 I Agree, Carol is the tech queen!
Adrienne says
Welcome Sylviane and I’m SO happy to hear that you visit Carolyn’s blog every once in awhile. I swear, this lady knows her stuff. I’m constantly impressed by what she shares and comes up with. I mean seriously!
Glad you enjoyed this post and you’re right, Feedburner is definitely the best way to set up your own RSS feed because it certainly makes it easier for the rest of us.
Have a great day Sylviane!
~Adrienne
Carolyn Nicander Mohr says
Hi Sylvia, Wow, Thank you for your kind words. It’s always a pleasure to see you here at The Wonder of Tech. 🙂
Adrienne did a wonderful job with this video and post. RSS feeds can be confusing but she made it seem so simple and gave us a great trick of how to turn jumbled text into an RSS feed. Very cool!
Thanks so much for stopping by today, Sylviane!
Carol Lynn says
This is a keeper! I use RSS religiously but so many people have no idea what it is. In fact, the one thing that’s sure to drive me nuts on someone else’s blog is that they don’t provide an RSS feed for me to subscribe to. I know email is sort of king, and people want to collect emails which you can’t do with RSS, but it’s so much easier than like you said, cluttering up your inbox. Plus if I get too many emails I just start deleting stuff and miss out. But if stuff accumulates in my RSS feed, that’s great because I can sit down and enjoy reading for a while.
For me, it goes from RSS to Instapaper – I love that app, because I can bookmark and keep all the stuff I like and also read it offline … which if you have an iPhone that relies on AT&T, you know is a lot of the time 😉
I’m going to keep this for anyone who asks me what RSS is again – and for all those crazy people who don’t put a feed on their blogs!
Adrienne says
That’s great Carol and I do hope that those who approach you about not knowing what an RSS feed is, they will find this post helpful.
Thanks for sharing that!
~Adrienne
Carolyn Nicander Mohr says
Hi Carol, Wow, it sounds as if you’re a big RSS fan!, you’re right, this is a keeper, Adrienne did a great job explaining RSS feeds. I imagine the people who don’t have RSS feeds on their blogs don’t know about them. With Adrienne’s tips, you can subscribe using RSS feeds even if the site owner hasn’t set up the feed.
I have to disagree with you about AT&T. Since I got my iPhone 4S I almost never drop signal. There is a valley near my house where I used to drop signal every time. Now with my 4S I never drop a call there. I was in Manhattan last weekend where I used to drop signal constantly and I didn’t drop signal all weekend.
Annie Andre says
This was an amazing HOW TO on RSS Readers.. Adrienne, you always do such a great job of simplifying things. I remember how confused i was when i first used RSS. I was like “what?” why would i need that? now i use it constantly.
There is another tool which people might like. Since i travel a lot, i’m in places where i can’t have internet access so i use two tools that allow me to have access to my articles when i am offline and they both synch up with google reader..
I use Feed demon for my desktop. It sits on my desktop and synchs with google rss reader and anytime i m on a plane or train and want to read but there is no internet access i just open it up.
On my phone i have an app that synchs up with google reader too. i can’t remember the app name but it’s pretty easy to find one. in the app store just type something like “RSS offline” and start looking for one.
Carolyn, this is a great site you have hear. I ‘ll be back soon… Especially after you have my favorite all time persons here as a guest poster..
🙂 Annie Chief Andventure-ologist.
Adrienne says
Hi Annie,
Always a pleasure to see you young lady and welcome to Carolyn’s home. She’s definitely your go to girl for apps and anything relating to gadgets. This woman is the Queen.
That is pretty cool, I didn’t know about that tool. I’m going to have to try that one although I don’t travel as much as you do. Thanks for sharing that one with us.
Enjoy your weekend young lady. You’ve got a head start over the rest of us.
~Adrienne
Carolyn Nicander Mohr says
Hi Annie, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! Yes, Adrienne did a great job of explaining the intricacies of RSS feeds in a simple, understandable way.
It sounds as if you’re making good use of your RSS feeds and readers, Annie. That’s great that you have a desktop solution that allows you to read them offline. Thanks for sharing that with us.
I’m so glad Adirenne helped you discover The Wonder of Tech. I look forward to seeing you here again soon! 🙂
Jens P. Berget says
Hi Adrienne and Carolyn,
What an awesome guest post, and the video is brilliant. I’ve been using rss feeds for a long time, I’m combining google reader and reeder, for my iPad and MacBook. I don’t use it on my iPhone.
I had no idea that I can add google alerts to my google reader. That’s something I’ll be doing today.
Thanks a lot.
Adrienne says
Hi Jens,
Happy to hear you enjoyed this post and I’m sure you’re an old pro on this subject. Now that you’re using your iPad so much more, that’s really cool. I’ll get one some day.
Yeah, Carolyn pointed that out in her post so I just wanted so show everyone where that is located. So, have a good time setting that one up Jens.
Enjoy your weekend.
~Adrienne
Carolyn Nicander Mohr says
Hi Jens, Not to self-promote, but you really need to read the Google Alerts article https://wonderoftech.com/on-alert-with-google-alerts/ . Since you’re starting a new business, you will want to follow your name, the name of your new business, your clients’ names, etc. In that article I explain how to get the Google Alerts to send alerts to your RSS feed.
Your right, Adrienne did a superb job with this, which is why I asked her to help with this article. She knows RSS feeds well and is great at making awesome videos!
Thanks for stopping by Jens. I hope you’re having a great weekend!
Jens P. Berget says
I will take a closer look at your post about google alert 🙂
Thanks a lot. I need all the help I can get when it comes to my new business…
Carolyn Nicander Mohr says
Jens, Your business will be a smashing success with or without Google Alerts. But the first time you meet with your clients and tell them some cutting edge news about a competitor that you learned from Google Alerts, you will be very happy.
Matti Nescio says
Kind of missing a couple key things:
When using Chrome /w RSS feeds (or GReader in particular), one really needs to use an
extension in order to get Chrome to handle feeds anywhere near similar to Opera or Firefox.
Either ‘Chrome Reader’ or ‘Google reader RSS Subscriber’ from the Chrome Web store.
Using the ask-jaime used in the video as an example:
No need to go to the site, one could’ve simply typed ask-jaime.com
or even just ask-jaime to the add subscription box in GReader.
No mention/shots of list view in GReader, not to even begin to mention
search, settings, or keyboard shortcuts.
Adrienne says
Hey Matt,
That’s the first I’ve ever heard of that and have never used an extension for Chrome or an add-on for FireFox pertaining to my RSS feeds. Obviously I’ve been able to handle mine without this so not sure exactly what the need is.
If it works for you then that’s terrific. This is news to me though. 🙂
Thanks for your comment.
~Adrienne
Matti Nescio says
Well, obviously the only time you won’t need an extension in Chrome for handling feeds is when the feed happens to be provided by Feedburner.
Adding one of the add-ons would mean that clicking on an RSS icon*
would either preview the feed in the browser , or preview/add it directly to GReader or your choice of feedaggregator – regardless of what type RSS/ATOM feed.
*either one hunted down somewhere on the page, or the one added to the addressbar by way of the feed auto-discovery element. ( http://www.rssboard.org/rss-autodiscovery )
Carolyn Nicander Mohr says
Hi Matti, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! You’re right, there were more aspects to RSS feeds that Adrienne could have included, but this blog is not intended to be a comprehensive catalog of tech instruction. Rather, this blog is geared toward every day people who want to learn more about the basics of personal technology.
I asked Adrienne when she was writing this post to keep the information limited so that the readers could get a basic understanding of RSS feeds, how to use them and how to subscribe to them. Adrienne was willing to share more with our readers but I asked her to direct her comments to brilliant Wonder of Tech readers who wanted an introduction to RSS feeds.
Thank you, Matti, for pointing out these other ways to use RSS feeds. Your comment is a valuable one.
cho cho says
Thanks for the thorough explanation. Never knew about RSS or what the symbol meant.
Is there somewhere you can go to see lists of what blogs are available on various subjects? (Anything similar to the card catalog for a library?)
Adrienne says
Hi Cho Cho,
Glad this explanation was helpful.
The best way to locate blogs in your niche is to just go to Google, type in your niche and then on the left hand side you’ll see blogs. Google will do it’s best to locate those blogs for you in that chosen niche.
Hope that was helpful.
~Adrienne
Carolyn Nicander Mohr says
Hi cho cho, Adrienne’s right, doing a Google search is a very effective way of finding blogs in your niche. I would also recommend Zite, an app for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch that will deliver relevant articles to your device, based on your preferences. Another good source for quality blogs is the YouDoFollow Directory by fellow blogger Christian Hollingsworth. http://www.youdofollow.com/
Bishal Sharma says
Thanks for this wonderful post and it really helped to know more about this topic and the detail description in it was very clear and very helpful. It was very wonderful that i found this blog. thanks a lots.
Carolyn Nicander Mohr says
Hi Bishal, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! I’m glad you found this blog too! Adrienne did a great job of explaining RSS feeds. Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts with us!
Adrienne says
Hi Bishal,
Happy to hear that you enjoyed this post and I do hope that it was helpful for you. If you ever have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.
Thank you for your comment.
~Adrienne
Masoud says
Hi ,
Thank you for this post
Carolyn Nicander Mohr says
Hi Masoud, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! I’m very glad you enjoyed this article. 🙂