Lori Reed | A Passion for Learning

Week 4 Things 8 & 9: RSS Feeds

I remember when I first attended a demo for staff of RSS feeds. It took me a while to get it, and at that point I was not reading nearly as many feeds as I am now. I discovered, quickly, that a News Reader is a must to keep up with information.

Years ago I used My Yahoo. Last year I tried Bloglines but did not like the linear form of it. Then I tried NetVibes and appreciated its visual appeal. I quickly learned that NetVibes was only manageable with a limited number of feeds. Then NetVibes added tabs, and I was in love… until my account got erased and all my feeds and links were lost. After that I switched back to Bloglines and have never turned back.

One of the best features about Bloglines is that it is not just for RSS feeds. You know all those e-mail subscriptions that you sign up for that clutter your Inbox? You can have those sent directly to Bloglines and keep them archived there!

Here’s how to subscribe to an e-mail newsletter with Bloglines:

Step 1: After logging in to Bloglines, click Add in the upper left column

Step 2: Click Email Groups in the right window pane

Step 3: Add the name of a Yahoo or Google Group or click Create an Email Subscription

Step: 4 Fill out the New Email Subscription Form and click the Create Email Subscription button

Step 5: In the Email Subscriptions window you will see a list of your email subscriptions followed by a Bloglines e-mail address. Select and copy this e-mail address.

Step 6: Go to the Web site that has the subscription form. Paste in the Bloglines e-mail address. This is your new e-mail address for this subscription only.

Step 7: After you have subscribed to the newsletter, go back to Bloglines and you should see a feed listed for your e-mail subscription. You will notice an envelope icon next to it. Click on the feed to view the newsletter.

The best part about this is you can easily “unsubscribe” by deleting the feed. You can add an unlimited amount of e-mail subscriptions or feeds. If you start getting spam in your feed you will have a good idea of where it originated from (since each feed can have its own bloglines e-mail address).

Technorati Tags: Bloglines, learning 2.0, learning2.0, PLCMCL2, productivity, RSS

So many blogs, so little time

The Shifted Librarian had a funny post on her blog about blogs and news aggregators:

Have you seen the quip on t-shirts and book bags, too many books, too little time? Well a 2006 version of that is too many blogs, too little time!

Can you relate?

I have well over 100 blogs that I subscribe to. I admit I don’t read them all every day or even every week. But blogs are becoming an important way to keep in touch and to get information faster. I no longer go to charlotte.com to get my news. I get notified by a news aggregator or an RSS reader when breaking news happens.

I was disappointed last week when my favorite RSS tool NetVibes went down, lost my account, found my account, but lost all my subscriptions. NetVibes had been the perfect reader for me. It allowed me to have a multi-tabbed page with feeds for blogs, news, email, and hyperlinks to Web sites. Since the loss of all my data I have been a little frazzled. It would have been so easy to back the information up. But of course, like most people, I didn’t.

I’ve switched back to BlogLines for now and am experimenting with BlogBridge, so I thought I would pose this question to other library staff…What RSS reader are you using and what are its best features?