If you are already familiar with RSS and use it, this post is not for you. Check out the sidebars for other things to do for now. This is for people who do not use or understand the idea of subscribing to websites but want to learn.
You’ll notice here at Orangejack, we offer several ways to subscribe to us, including RSS. Let’s get the irrelevant stuff out of the way first. RSS is short for Really Simple Syndication. All that means is that there are agreed-upon rules for people to allow their online content to be rebroadcast somewhere else. Like I said, this stuff really is irrelevant for us. What we care about is how we can use RSS to make our web life better – and it’s really easy.
Perhaps a good start is to watch this short video explaining how RSS works, but in plain English! Yay!
YouTube: Video: RSS in Plain English
So you see, when blogs, news sites, and social media sites are updated, they often send out an RSS feed with that update. You just need an RSS reader to receive it. A RSS reader is like an email reader or, better yet, a DVR. Just like you set your DVR to record “updates” from your favorite TV shows, a RSS reader “records” updates from your favorite websites.
It’s very typical of me to keep my browswer open with at least two tabs open: one for email (people updates) and one for RSS feeds (web updates).
So let’s get a RSS reader! I use Google Reader (sometimes I write it as gReader) because it’s simple to use. Lucky for us the same guys who did the video above a couple years ago (Common Craft) have become more polished and have a 1-minute video explaining Google Reader.
YouTube – Google Reader in Plain English
Since I use gReader, I can help you with specific questions about using it. Here are a couple settings I peronally use to get the most out of gReader:
I like to put my subscriptions into folders or ‘tags’.
Since you can tag a feed with multiple tags, I create one called “top” for my favorite/can’t miss feeds. If I don’t have much time, I go straight to the top folder!
I like to only have updated feeds show up — it cuts down on the overwhelming feeling one can get with a lot of unread items.
When I’m processing feeds, if one is interesting but I don’t have time for it, at the bottom of that item I mark it with a star and read all of those later. The best ones I share with you on my Google Share blog and some of those make it to the Orangejack Facebook Page.
I like to have every feed be shown as “expanded” — it helps me decide quickly if I should read it.
I like to have the viewing settings be sorted by the oldest so I’m sure to read items in the order they were published.
And oh by the way, you don’t have to be stuck behind your computer to be updated through gReader. If your mobile phone has a browser (and you have the data plan!) point it to http://www.google.com/reader/m and it’s perfectly synced for when you get back to your computer.
So if you haven’t done so yet, please take a moment to subscribe to the Orangejack Updates via RSS, or, even after all this, by email! I also suggest you take a look at some of the links in the sidebar for more great resourcesin which to subscribe (and also note that most of our social media profiles offer a RSS feed so if you, say, wanted to get my Twitter updates via RSS, you certainly can).
