Blog

12 January 2010

If you access lots of websites and look at people's blogs on a regular basis, then you should look at using a RSS reader and make life a bit more simple.

What is a RSS Reader?

In simple terms it will help bring changing information that you are interested to you. The RSS reader helps you manage this from a single place and saves you a job of having to look at lots of different sites to keep up to date.

It stands for Really Simple Syndication and the technology has been around for many years. Most people don't seem to know what it is or how it can be of benefit. You'll find the best definition of RSS on Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS

Simple steps to get going with RSS

Whenever you see the orange symbol

it means that there is a RSS newsfeed link available to you to stay up-to-date when the latest news. There are many feeds available particularly from bloggers and content management systems. Organisations that care about broadcasting changes will use RSS. So, click on the orange symbol and it will give you XML link similar to the one below.

The Consoltis Blog RSS feed

http://www.consoltis.com/rss/25/50/41/8b44c538d569216e2b520038555e9964.xml

To use the feed, you need a Reader. I use Google's RSS Reader (http://www.google.com/reader). It's free and have subscribed to many sites that interest me both from a business and personal perspective ie. changes to google, marketing sites, Search Engine Optimisation, Andy's Murray's tennis blog etc ..

All you do is take a copy of the XML feed (like the Consoltis Blog ) and then add a subscription for each link. You'll soon build up a very powerful list of information you can use everyday.

Benefits

Information comes to you
You can look at the changes other organisations and people have made any time you like
The RSS Reader works a bit like email and keeps track of the pages you've not seen
You can access the RSS reader from any device including you're mobile phone
Saves you time and keeps you in touch

Make a comment

By Charlotte Britton, 16 Jan 10

I use Google reader and it makes it a lot easier to read blogs. In fact I share some of the articles with some of my contacts.

I also have Google reader set up on my Blackberry. So if I'm on a bus or train I can catch up on the blogs, rather than reading the metro!

By Sue Schoormans, 3 Feb 10

Thanks for the introduction to RSS Reader Andrew. Saves so much time which of course saves money. Fantastic. Try it, why don't you?

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RSS

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