Box: New to Newsfeeds

 

How do I get started reading newsfeeds? Newzcrawler and Feedreader, both mentioned in the main article, are the best programs to start with. Feedreader is still in development, but felt pretty stable to me. To add a Really Simple Syndication, or RSS feed, just paste in the link [more on this in a bit] and it should start showing up immediately. Newzcrawler even lets you send stuff from other people’s feeds to your own blog, or on-line journal, or RSS feed. Each program adds the feeds in a slightly different way, but in most cases you’ll be asked to copy a link [the Web site address that appears at the top of your browser] into the newsreader. These links usually end in a full stop, then three letters: RSS, RDF or XML (don’t worry which; they all do the same thing).

This sounds scary. If all this is a bit daunting, try Serence’s KlipFolio (www.serence.com), which is a bit more polished — though still free to the end-user. Now into its second version, it supports Korean and Chinese language Klips. Download the software and then browse the various Klips on offer. An Outlook user? Try NewsGator (www.newsgator.com) which folds all your RSS feeds into an Outlook folder. Or if you’re brave, check out clevercactus (www.clevercactus.com), which is an Outlook-style personal organizer with RSS built in. Here’s a provisional list of newsreaders: www.hebig.org/blogs/archives/main/000877.php

How do I find interesting feeds? A couple of places to start: Feedster (www.feedster.com) is the Google of the RSS/blog world. Another option is Syndic8 (http://www.syndic8.com/), a more select, and searchable, list of feeds. You’ll notice a lot of sites offer their own feeds so you don’t have to go hunting for them. Can’t find a feed for a site you’re interested in? Check out MyRSS (http://myrss.com/) which allows you to build a custom feed for any site, even if it doesn’t have a feed. It’s pretty straightforward, too.

How do I set up my own newsfeed? First you need material, which means setting up a blog. That’s easy enough: my favourites are Weblogger (www.weblogger.com) or Blogger (www.blogger.com). Once you’ve set up a blog, both sites offer simple options to add an RSS feed automatically. That’s it. If you’re a company thinking of setting up a feed, you may want to talk to the pros. The coding is quite simple, but there are ways to add your logo, and other corporate stuff, to ensure some quality control.

Tell me more? Can’t, sorry, I’ve run out of space. Here’s where you can find out more about the whole thing, however:www.faganfinder.com/search/rss.shtml