A Plain English Guide to Blogs and RSS

Fancy RSS IconWhat is a blog? What is RSS? What is a feed reader?

These videos give a quick, simple explanation of what blogs are, and how using the power of RSS can save you a lot of time online. I’ve also included links to the Transcripts for the videos, and added my own explanation of RSS, in case you have a slow internet connection.

Blogs in Plain English


Transcript

Video: Blogs in Plain English [Common Craft]

For a great written explanation, see: What is a Blog? -- Problogger

RSS in Plain English


Transcript

Video: RSS in Plain English [Common Craft]

My Explanation of RSS

There are two ways you can keep up-to-date with blogs and news sites.

1) The Old Way: You visit all the websites you want to stay up-to-date with, one by one. When you visit the first site, you see if there are any new posts. Then you see if any look interesting. Then you read the posts that interest you. Then you do the same process for all the websites that you want to keep up-to-date with. In a nutshell, you go to many websites to look for new posts.

2) The New Improved Way: This way uses RSS technology, which brings all the new posts to you. You open up your ‘feed reader’ software and the program checks all your favorite blogs and news sites to see if any have been updated. It then downloads the new posts from all the blogs into your software for you to read in one place.

Your feed reader (also called an “RSS reader”or an “aggregator”) is like a newspaper or magazine that you design yourself with all your favorite types of articles in the one place.

In a nutshell, your feed reader does all the work for you. The new posts of many websites automatically come to you, in one place.

You subscribe to a feed by entering the feed’s link into the feed reader or by clicking an RSS icon in a browser that initiates the subscription process. The reader checks your subscribed feeds regularly for new content, downloading any updates that it finds.

The standard RSS icon looks like this:

It’s a bit boring, so you’ll see variations on the orange square, like this:

3D feed icon

Or fancier ones like these:

Peel feed icon

Circle feed icon

Ball feed icon

Billboard feed icon

Coffee feed icon

Fancy RSS Icon

Basically there are two types of RSS readers:

  1. Web-based, such as the Google Reader, that you use online, and you can access your account from any computer connected to the Internet.
  2. Program-based, that you install and use on your own computer.

There are lots of RSS reader programs you can download to run directly on your computer. In either case these RSS readers give you a handy way to simultaneously monitor your favorite feeds from multiple sites and sources. Just follow the directions for each reader.

I used to use Windows, then Ubuntu Linux and now I own a Mac, so I’ve used a few different feed readers over the years. All of them are free.

In my Windows time, I tried using the online service called Bloglines before settling on using Thunderbird (program) for my feeds and emails. A fellow geek loves using Google Reader, so if you want to use an online service, and especially if you already have a Google/Gmail account, I’d try Google Reader first.

I got sick of having my feeds in the same program as my emails, so when I switched to Ubuntu I tried a few readers before deciding that Akregator was best for me.

Now that I’m converted to Mac, I love using Vienna.

Here are some links to popular feed readers:

Online Services

Feed Reader Programs

Thanks to Wikipedia for this list.

Other uses for RSS

RSS can also be used to grab content from other websites and syndicate it on your own website. Or other people can syndicate your content on their websites. It’s all very sharing and caring, isn’t it?

The best example I can give of a practical use for syndication is a brand new website called Alltop with the tagline, “We’ve got all the top stories covered all the time.”

It’s like an online feed reader with all the top stories in a whole range of topics. Check out the Life Hacks topic, for instance. Pretty cool.

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