May Contain Bolts

So with mishmashmosh’s blog being phased out (plus the fact that it takes FOREVER to update), some of you may want to find a new method to keep track of everyone’s blogs. I’m just going to quickly run through the basics.

What is RSS?

RSS stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication’ and (in simple terms) is just a way of sending new content (like blog posts, news, videos, etc.) out to different ‘readers’ in a standardized format. The main benefit of this is that you can collect or ‘aggregate’ all the new stuff you want to view into 1 place.

How do I get to these RSS feeds?

For WordPress, it would be: http://[blog link].wordpress.com/feed (eg. mishmashmosh)

For Blogspot, it would be: http://[blog link].blogspot.com/rss.xml (eg. krissybubbles)

For Tumblr, it would be: http://[blog link].tumblr.com/rss (eg. blitherblather)

Most of the news/blog-style sites that you visit will also have an RSS link somewhere. Just look for this icon  or the word RSS, feed or Atom (which is alternative to RSS).

What do I do with these?

You can ’subscribe’ to these with an RSS reader. If you’re running Firefox, you’ll be presented with a page where it will give you an option on where to add the feed to. Or, you can manually add it into one of the following:

1. Google Reader

Google has its own web-based feed reading service, which extremely handy if you have a Google account. You can view in full post mode, or if you like the personal feel of individual blogs, you can have it in heading view with the ability to click through. It’s a great service, and there’s a few neat features like the ability to share interesting posts among friends, and individual feed stats (Belle’s old blog has an impressive 18 subscribers).

2. FeedDemon

FeedDemon is a desktop-based RSS reader which I use. In the end, you’re generally not going to find too much difference between all the feed readers, but what’s great about FeedDemon is the ability to sync with Google Reader. It also provides little notifications when there’s a new post. It has a number of other features as well, and as a desktop-based reader, it feels quite a bit more responsive.

3. Alternatives

There’s a whole heap of other web, desktop and mobile based aggregators. A few can be found on Wikipedia here. Google Reader has a mobile version here, and an iPhone version here. Do you have any other alternatives? (I remember Jero mentioning one with Windows Live?) Any other questions?