I’m not kidding! Did you know that you don’t have to visit this website just to see what’s new? It’s the 21st century and there’s a better way…
Enter RSS.
RSS is just a way to use XML to represent content, but it has big implications. You can “subscribe” to any web page with an RSS feed and be instantly aware of any updates to that site.
For instance, my friend Justin created a blog that I’m interested in. But it’s inefficient for me to visit his site everyday to see if anything is new. Usually there’s nothing new, but you never know when a new post may show up.
All blogs and news sites offer an RSS feed, which contains a list of all the newest articles or news items. The cool thing is you can use a “feed reader” program to do the work of checking all of your favorite RSS feeds to see if anything is new. It’s kind of like an email program, but in reverse… No one is sending you anything, the program is actively checking all of the feeds you’re interested in. It will show you all the new articles and allow you to read them right within the program. So whether you’re interested in 5 sites or 100 sites, the feed reader will make sure you’re informed about all the new developments, without having to remember to visit all of those sites yourself.
Here’s what you need to get started: Google Reader. I use it, and highly recommend it.
This video can introduce you to the cool features of Google Reader.
One tip I have: only subscribe to RSS feeds related to specific topics you’re interested in.. For me, it doesn’t make much sense to subscribe to a site like Slashdot, because I know that they will be posting many articles per day, and it will just clutter my Google Reader inbox. Use the feed reader to keep yourself informed about those odd little things that you care about, but you don’t know when the new content might show up. For instance, I came across a neat programming language called Scala, and I’m interested to track it’s development, so I subscribed to an RSS feed to keep me informed.
This is a big shift happening.. How did you find out what was new before? Newspapers and magazines make the decisions about what to inform their readers about. Using an RSS feed reader is like being able to read a personalized newspaper that exactly matches your interests. Now, the power is shifting to the individuals to subscribe to all the little things that matter to them. So take charge of this new power, choose content that interests you, and stay informed about the things that matter to you.
So be sure to click the subscribe to this site’s RSS feed, and you’ll never be out of the loop again!
