Bloglines:

LISD Brown Bag Webinar, February 23, 2010

RSS: What The Heck Is It?

RSS stands for: Rich Site Summary, or RDF Site Summary, or

Really Simple Syndication.

Why is RSS a good thing?

The ability to subscribe to content using RSS means that you can easily get content that you want without every having to worry about spam. The content doesn't go to your email box, it goes to a news feeder. You can subscribe or unsubscribe to whatever content you want.

Finding RSS Feeds

How do I know if a site is RSS enabled?

Usually sites post a little button that says RSS or XML or a link that says "Syndicate this site". Clicking on one of these buttons or links will take you to a page with a lot of ugly text on it. Never mind the text, just copy the URL that appears in the URL window for the page and use that URL to subscribe to the site in your news feed reader.

RSS: A Visual Approach

How do I get started?1. The first step is to create an account for a free

web=based news reader, such as Google Reader, Bloglines, Netvibes, or other feed reader.

2. The next is to copy and paste the RSS URL of a favorite site into your news feed reader where it says to subscribe to a new feed. For example, the RSS URL for SimplyRecipes.com is:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/elise/simplyrecipes 3. Find a few other sites with RSS feeds that interest you

and subscribe to them as well. As often as you want, check the news feed reader as you would check email to see new content.

News Readers

What Is a News Reader?• A piece of software or Web application

that pulls together RSS feeds from multiple sources into one place making it easy to browse newly posted information from blogs, alert services, and other Web sites

• i.e. Bloglines, Google Reader, Netvibes

News Readers

News Readers are also known as:• News aggregators

• RSS aggregators

• RSS readers

• RSS stands for:• Rich Site Summary -OR-

• Really Simple Syndication

News Readers

RSS allows you to receive notification of current content without having to visit the web site of interest to determine if it has been updated.

• Look for orange RSS or XML button to get URL for the blog’s RSS feed

• Then subscribe to it from your news reader

News Reader: Bloglines

Bloglines is a FREE online service that helps you subscribe to and manage lots of web information, such as news feeds, weblogs and audio.

Bloglines tracks the information you're interested in, retrieves new stuff as it happens, and organizes everything for you on your own personal web news page.

• From: Bloglines FAQ http://www.bloglines.com/help/faq

About Bloglines

Bloglines is free Bloglines is Web-based

• Nothing to download

• Access from any computer with an Internet connection

Can subscribe to RSS feeds and have email listservs/subscriptions delivered to Bloglines

Subscribing to Bloglines

Go to http://www.bloglines.com/ Only requires an email address &

password

Let’s take a look at Bloglines . . .

Does My Favorite Site Have Feeds?

Yes, if you see any of the following:

“Syndicate this site!”

Serious Feed Sites

The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/index.html

Christian Science Monitor: http://www.csmonitor.com/rss/index.html

National Public Radio: http://www.npr.org/rss/index.html

BBC (scroll to the bottom for feeds): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/rss/default.stm

Fun Feed Sites

iTunes feed generator: http://www.apple.com/rss/

Comics: http://www.bloglines.com/search?r=0&q=comics

Dave Barry: http://weblog.herald.com/column/davebarry/

Television Without Pity: http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/rss.xml

Other Bloglines Uses

Subscribe to listservs: http://www.blogdriverswaltz.com/archive/000668.html

Create your own blog at bloglines: http://www.bloglines.com/about/clipblog

Package Tracking, Weather Forecasts, Local News (all available under Add)

Another Easy-to-Use Feed Reader: Google Reader

View Common Craft video on Google Reader in Plain English:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSPZ2Uu_X3Y