RSSAn Introduction to RSS and Google Reader
With all the information spread across the web, it can be very difficult to keep up with everything in even the small part that interests you.
Keeping a list of bookmarks and visiting all those pages one at a time works fine when the number of sites you track is small. After a while, however, the list grows and you start thinking, there must be a better way.
That’s where RSS comes in.
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication (or Rich Site Summary, depending on who you ask), but that’s not as important as what it does.
In the rest of this page we’ll look at what RSS is, how you can use it, and get you started with an excellent tool to make it work.
What is it and why should I care?
Most web pages these days have an RSS feed, which is nothing more than another page sitting along side of it and containing some information about the content on that page. Information like the date and time it was posted, the author, a summary of the article and much more.
If you’re using a relatively modern browser, you can usually tell if there is an RSS feed associated with a page by looking for a tag like this 
in your browser interface.
The RSS “feed” is actually a web page itself and most modern browsers will happily show the information if you wanted, but that really wouldn’t be any more helpful than visiting the original page.
Instead we are going to hand this resource off to a web site or program known as an RSS aggregator (more specifics about how to use one later).
For another overview of RSS and how to use it, watch this video, RSS in Plain English.
Using RSS
When you open an aggregator, it goes out to each of the sites you have in your list and pulls in the new information found on the RSS page. It then makes everything in all the feeds you’ve selected available to you in one place.
Think about it this way. RSS is like email in that both bring lots of information into one place making it easy for you to read and process.
Email, however, is a “push” technology. You have no control over who sends a message and when it’s sent. Someone else pushes information to you.
RSS, on the other hand, is a “pull” technology. You decide the source of the information and when you want to receive it. You are in control. And, since you choose the sources, there’s no spam.
Online RSS Aggregators – Google Reader
Step 1 in the process is to find yourself an aggregator. As with email, you could choose an aggregator that is web-based or one that is a program running on your computer.
Let’s look at a web-based example first.
Google Reader is a free service from the same people you probably use for searching the web. The first time you visit Reader you will have to sign up for a Google account if you don’t already have one. It’s free and they don’t ask for much information.
Sign into your Google account.
The layout of the screen is pretty basic. The left column is where you’ll see a list of your subscriptions. The rest of the page will change depending on what you’re looking at.
So, the first step is to add some subscriptions.
Suppose you want to keep track of the New York Times science page. When you visit that URL, if you’re using a modern browser like Firefox, IE 7, or Safari, the browser itself will tell you if there’s an RSS feed.
If there is a feed, you’ll see an icon like this 
somewhere in the browser window (in Firefox, it’s at the right side of the address box).
Simply copy the full address of this page.
Next, switch back to Google Reader, click on the Add Subscription link, paste the link into the box and click add.
Now you’ll see the link to the Times science feed in the Subscription list. Click on it to see what’s new.
The information you see in the summary will depend on what has been included in the RSS feed. In this case, the Times feed is only including a two-line summary. If you want to read more, click the headline to view the whole article.
That wasn’t too hard but we can make things even easier an more automatic.
While in your Google Reader account, click on Settings, then on the Goodies tab.
Scroll down the page to the section Subscribe as you surf. Drag the Subscribe link 
to the bookmark bar in your Browser.
Now when you arrive at a page you want to add to your Google Reader feeds, just click that link. The browser will take you to your Reader page (you may need to login). Click the Subscribe button to complete the process.
You can add RSS feeds for more than just news. Almost every blog and podcast includes a feed (that’s where the technology started) and so do non-news sites such as flickr, YouTube and ebay.
Even a search in Google Blog Search or Google News has an RSS feed attach.
Once you start getting lots of feeds in your aggregator you’ll want to better organize them. When a feed is open, click on the Feed stettings drop down menu in the upper right side and either select a folder or create a new one.
There are many other options for making the reader work for you. There are also other online RSS readers you may want to look at including Bloglines, currently the largest and best known of the sites.
Desktop RSS Aggregators
While some people like to use online aggregators, others of us prefer a desktop version. The advantage of a desktop aggregator is that these programs usually have more features and are easier to customize. They are also faster.
This main disadvantage, of course, is that your subscriptions are only available on the one computer where the software is installed, although some programs will act as an interface to Google Reader and update your online account automatically.
One of those hybrid aggregators is NetNewsWire, the program I use most often. As you can see, I have a lot of feeds to keep track of and it would never be possible if I wasn’t using an aggregator of some kind.
If you’re interested in exploring a desktop RSS aggregator which interacts with Google Reader, check out one of these:
NetNewsWire – Free and paid versions (free includes small ads in the interface), for Macintosh users only.
FeedDemon – From the same company, also free and paid, for Windows users.
NetNewsWire is also available for your iPhone and there are many different RSS readers for other phones. And Google Reader also formats itself pretty well for many browsers on hand held devices.
Between online RSS aggregators and software that does the job, you have many choices for keeping track of updates on web sites and more.
Pick one and get into the habit of using it to keep up with information on the web.
Last updated March 28th, 2009Filed under RSS
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