How to subscribe to an RSS feed
Whenever you come here, you might be wondering what the big pink icon with the weird logo is, or what it’s for. Depending on what browser you’re using, you might see a small, similar icon in your address bar, or the letters “RSS.” You may have noticed these icons and logos on several of your favorite websites. When you click on any of them, you’ll likely be taken to a watered-down, simplified version of the page you were just looking at. This is called a “feed.” What is a feed for? Well, my friends, they make your life a lot easier.
You have the ability to “subscribe” to a feed. This means you’ll automatically be notified whenever a particular blog or news column makes a new post. Or, even if you’re not notified, you’ll be able to quickly see if there are any new posts without having to load the entire website. It’s much faster and it’s very easy to check multiple feeds for new posts in just a couple of seconds.
How do you subscribe to a feed? There are several ways. Personally, I use Live Bookmarks, which is included in the Firefox browser. When you click on the link to a feed and add it to your Bookmarks, you can hover over that bookmark and a sub-menu will appear with the most recent posts for that blog or news column, with the most recent one on top. When you click on one, it will take you to the actual webpage for that individual post. I prefer this, because I still prefer actual websites over just reading off of feeds. Websites are so much prettier!
Safari also has its own built-in feed reader. When you bookmark the URL of a feed, when you go to that bookmark, there will be a number in parentheses next to the site name. That’s how many new posts there have been since your last visit to that feed. Convenient, huh? When you click on it, it will take you to the main feed.
Some popular online feed readers include:
Yes, even your Yahoo! homepage can read feeds! Some websites also offer an e-mail subscription service. If you use this to subscribe, you’ll get an e-mail every time a new post is published, and you won’t even have to spend the time going through your bookmarks to see if there’s anything new.
There are also several other non-web-based, software download news aggregator programs for both Windows and Mac. Just google “feed readers” or “news aggregators” to find them. DON’T pay for one - there are plenty of free ones out there! Just find the one that’s right for you, and you’ll be wondering why you haven’t been using feeds all along.
Nowadays, how many subscribers a website has is often a major indicator of that site’s overall popularity on the web. So by subscribing to your favorite website’s feeds, you’re helping support them by improving their credibility.
I realize this all sounded like one big paid advertisement for feed readers, but it isn’t. This is just part of a new “How To” series I’m starting, where I post about random things I didn’t know how to do myself and spent hours googling to figure out. I’m just trying to make your life a little easier!
Oh, and please subscribe to my Retarded Feed. That would really make my day. :)
Subscribe to to the Retarded Feed
March 20th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
I read this post in google reader which I LOVE passionately. I don’t know how people could keep up with blogs these days without using some kind of feed reader.