RSS Feeds And Why You Should Subscribe To Them

• Posted on
• April 8, 2008 6:40 PM
• in
• Memberland

Ever visit your favorite website to see if they've updated, but once there, you leave in disappointment since nothing had changed? If so, you need to start using RSS feeds - your new best friend on the internet.

Finding RSS Feeds

The first thing you need to do is find an RSS feed. Not all websites have it, but many news sites and blogs (including this blog) do. For example, you'll see that we have a "Subscribe" button in the menu section of this blog.

Most modern browsers like Firefox and Internet Explorer 7 can spot feeds for you if you have trouble finding the feed on the site. Here are examples of how feeds appear in Firefox and in Internet Explorer 7.

Subscribing

Once you find the feed, go ahead and click it. Depending on your settings or preferences, the browser may ask how you want to view these feeds; either with the browser itself or a third-party RSS feed reader. It's up to you, but Google Reader is a good feed reader if you already have a Gmail account, as you can conveniently check your feeds wherever you go as long as you are logged in.

Reading

Once subscribed, either fire up your feed reader or click on the feed link in your browser, and voilà - you are subscribed! The feed will be automatically updated whenever a new post is added so you'll never miss a thing.

Now you can e-stalk us.