I recently wrote a short article for site owners, explaining why I think they should consider offering synidication feeds (RSS). This article is a bookend, in a sense, to that one.
When you view web pages, you use a program called a browser. Most people use the Microsoft program Internet Explorer because it comes pre-installed when you buy a computer with Windows. Before Internet Explorer was a popular program called Netscape Navigator. Microsoft essentially put that program out of business by offering IE for free, and pre-installed with Windows. It was also a better program. But IE hasn't been upgraded in several years. And since then, others have created better (and safer) browsers. Two for Windows computers are Opera, and Firefox.
If you ask most people, they never heard of the word Browser. They just know that they click the blue e to get to the internet. To get their email these same people click on their Outlook Express or Outlook icon. Those programs are used to fetch and send email.
There is a third type of program that is gaining popularity very quickly on the internet. It is called a Feed Reader. What this program does is automatically check websites to see if they have new articles published since last you looked. This little idea can have some very large ramifications
Lets say you have about 50 'favorite' websites that post new articles from time to time on subjects of interest to you. Each day you can click through your favorites list to see what's new at each site. Many will have not changed. Some will have new articles that don't show up on the home page in a way that you notice them. All in all you could spend an hour a day just checking these sites. All this effort to read maybe a have a dozen interesting stories.
Instead of wasting that time you can use a program called a Feed Reader. You can even get add-ons to your Browser to do the same thing. Here's what you do: On each site you enjoy, find the orange XML button and click it. Follow directions to add this site to your feed reader. Do this to each site you come across that looks appealing to you. Now, each day when you want to find out what's new, open your feed reader and peruse the list of all of your feeds. The ones with new material will be bolded. No more wasting time going to ever site. The sites that change are noted by the feed reader. Click on the articles you want, and up they come in your Browser.
Pretty neat, huh?
A free and easy to use feed reader is called Bloglines. It isn't a new program, its a website. To get started, go the the Bloglines site and sign up. Download the system tray notifier too. It puts a little B block in your lower right hand corner system tray and marks it in red every time you have something new to look at.
Most people use a feed reader to keep up with blogs. Blogs being personal comentary websites that often specialize in a particular topic. Topics that interest me are politics, internet software, sports, etc. You might be more interested in arts, or music or, who knows? Blogs are a great way to keep on top of the pulse of a particular interest. But feed readers can be used in other ways -- as appointment reminders, as movie listings