Thursday, February 25, 2010

Why You Should be Using RSS

It's been a little while since I posted, but there's a good reason. It's not that I haven't had any ideas of what to write about; instead, I knew *exactly* what I wanted to write, and just needed to free up the time to do it.

If you're not already using RSS feeds, hopefully, this post will be revolutionary for you. But, it's important to tread lightly ... RSS feeds are addicting. I'm also going to warn you - this will be a fairly lengthy post.

In simple terms, RSS feeds enable you to be notified when websites/webpages you want to follow are updated. It's that easy. There's no need to worry about the technology or anything like that.

When Internet browsers first began, we had these great little tools called "bookmarks" - where you could return to a site and check out new content. If you're like me, you bookmarked and bookmarked and bookmarked -- so much that it's impossible to keep up with everything.

So, RSS feeds allow me to be notified when there's new content. Now, rather than me having to waste my time checking on the sites, I can check out the content in one place, only when it's updated. It's a huge win-win!

STEP 1: Get a Reader
RSS feeds are essentially code. You need a reader to be able to read them. Thankfully, a reader makes everything easy. There are several options, but I'm going to recommend Google Reader. There's only a few drawbacks to Google Reader (and, most of the alternatives have them, as well). The positives are enormous:
  1. It's portable - you can access it anywhere
  2. It's not going anywhere -- Google is here for the long haul
  3. You have a lot of control over the organization of your feeds

As you can see from the image, I have my feeds organized into several folders - Jobs, Friends, Communications, Business Writing, etc. You control how to organize the feeds (and, it's pretty intuitive).

Next to each 'folder', is the number of unread messages in the folder (including all the feeds you've placed in there). You can also click on the + sign next to the folder to show all the individual feeds, and select just ONE of the feeds in the folder to view.

When you click on one of the folders, you'll get all the posts. If it's bolded, it's unread. Easy again. If you've clicked on the main folder, you'll see the feed name to the left of the post (so you know where it came from); if you select just one feed, that column is missing (obviously).

And that's it - that's all there is to reading in Google Reader. You can select to see a list (my preference) or a detailed look (where the entire body of the post is displayed). As you scroll down, you'll continue to load items (so you can see all the unread posts). I like the list because I can normally tell from the subject line whether I want to read the post. Once I'm done with a folder, I click on the "Mark all as read" button, and the folder is refreshed. Nothing is deleted -- you can always go back and hunt for something, or you can search using the search tool.

STEP 2: Start adding feeds
In the early days, it was hard to find RSS feeds, as there were several standards. Today, there's one icon, which makes it easy. If you're using Firefox as your browser (and, if you're not, you should be), 99% of the sites with RSS feeds show the symbol in the location bar (where the URL is located). The rest of the time, it'll be somewhere else on the page, but almost ALWAYS with this symbol.

Blogs, by their design have RSS feeds. Most older-established websites don't (but, I'm going to tell you how to work with them, too).

So, that's it - find content, add it, read it, enjoy. I'd recommend starting with this blog!

STEP 3: Organizing your feeds
Once you've added feeds to Google Reader, you'll want to organize them, so similar topics are together. This, too, is easy. On the bottom left of the screen is a link for "Manage subscriptions." You'll see a list of all your feeds. Pick one and to the far right there'll be a pull-down menu to "Add to folder." You'll select the option for a new folder, which you can then name. The feed will be automatically placed there.

You can either manually add all your feeds that way or you can drag-and-drop them in the main screen. Again, the emphasis is on simple. Always.

STEP 4A: Advanced Steps
So, once you've moved past the basics, you'll eventually come to crave content on pages that *don't* offer an RSS feed (and, yes, sadly, those sites do exist). What to do?

Well, there are two different options that should address MOST of the needs. Both take a few steps to set up, but ultimately, they're easy enough to execute.

If you're lucky enough to find a site that gives you the option to receive updates via email, you're in luck. Of course, it's no fun to get this information through email -- we're here to *reduce* our email clutter; not add to it. And that's why RSS is the best option ... with email, you have to deal with the email when it arrives -- read it or put it to the side; and -- too often -- it goes to the side and gets forgotten. With RSS, you can plan when to check your reader, and you can deal with it on your terms.

So, here's the trick: Sign up for GMail (or any mail service that offers an RSS feed -- that's right, Gmail has an RSS feed attached to it (you're starting to see where this is going, right?))

Ah, but here's where Google throws you a curve ball. For some reason, Google Reader doesn't handle (warning: little bit of tech jargon ahead) authenticated feeds -- these are feeds that are linked to password protected accounts ... like GMail. Why? I don't know (I thought these were both Google products!). Thankfully, very few RSS feeds are linked to authenticated feeds. But, we have a way around that too.

After attempting to add the feed to Googe Reader, copy the RSS feed text (it'll look like this: https://mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom) and then, head over to FreeMyFeed. Paste that text and add your user name and password. FreeMyFeed will generate a new, NON-authenticated feed for you, which you can then add to Google Reader.

The advantage of using GMail is you can archive your mail and still access it through Google Reader. But, if you *delete* your mail, you won't be able to access it, obviously. *Warning* - Sending your GMail to Google Reader will not generate the entire body of the email; but only the header (see STEP 4C, below, for more info).

You can also use FreeMyFeed to capture your Twitter feed, if you wish. Obviously, you can't reply or post to Twitter from GoogleReader, but you can, quickly, read the posts and click the post to head over to Twitter to post or reply from there.

I'm using this method to stay up-to-date on LinkedIn Group discussions, as well as my Twitter feeds. Remarkably, LinkedIn is NOT RSS-friendly, so it requires a little work to funnel everything to Google Reader (see STEP 4C below).

STEP 4B: More Advanced Steps
And, what if you can't get an email alert from the page? Again, there's a way around that, as well. And, it requires another service.

(Early warning: Google Reader recently launched a service that they claim will provide an RSS feed to any page that doesn't have one - don't believe the hype. It doesn't catch every change on the page, and it doesn't tell you *what* changed on the page; just that the page has changed. The jury is out on this one).

But, thankfully, there is another option. Copy the URL of the page you want to track (and, this is important, here, you're tracking the individual page, not the whole site ... so, if there's multiple pages on the site you want to track, you need to do this for each of them). Head over to ChangeDetection and sign up for an account. You can then follow the steps to add the page to be monitored. After you set up the page, select the "RSS only" notification on the next page before finalizing the monitor.

On the home page of ChangeDetection, in the upper left, under "My Account", you'll see a link for an RSS feed. Click on that, and choose to NOT have it password protected (thus cutting out the FreeMyFeed step). At the bottom, there's text for the RSS feed. Copy that text and - on the Google Reader page towards the top, under the Google Reader logo, you'll see an option to "Add a Subscription." Paste the text there and add your feed to whatever folder you want.

The best part of this - each monitor you have will generate its own post (so, you won't have to scroll through all the monitors ... each one is its own thread in Google Reader). When you access the notification, you'll select the option to "show the change log" and then, when you arrive back at the ChangeDetection site, select the date you want to check for (most likely, the most recent, if you're checking this every day).

What you'll see is a snapshot of the page with all the changes clearly marked. Additions to the page are shown in yellow; deletions are shown with strikethrough text. It's that easy -- instantly, you can see exactly what changed on every page.

I know this sounds confusing, but it's infinitely easier in practice. And, thankfully, more and more websites are using/embracing RSS technology.

STEP 4C: The Most Advanced Steps
Okay - deep breath now. I know I mentioned above that you can access GMail through Google Reader (with some steps), but it doesn't deliver the entire message. So, here's the way around that (and, this is how I handle getting my LinkedIn Group messages (which really *should* have RSS feeds attached to them).

So, bear with me. You're going to sign up for a blog at blogger.com. Once you create a blog, under "settings" you'll want to activate the ability to "post via email" and set it to go automatically. What this means is - everytime an email comes in to the email address you specify, it will post to the blog.

Now, subscribe to the blog via RSS (same as we outlined in Step 2). Then, use this new blogger email address for email newsletters. What does this all mean?

It means, every time a newsletter is emailed, it will get posted to your blog (which you have subscribed to), and thus, you'll get an individual RSS notification for every email sent.

Or, if you don't want people to *ever* see the blog (because, effectively, it *is* public,) you can set the newsletter to still be delivered to your GMail account and then, set up a filter to automatically forward those emails to the blogger email account, and simultaneously delete the message from GMail. End result - it still posts to your blog and you still can subscribe to it; but your 'blogger' email is hidden

Credit for this has to go to Digital Inspiration (see Idea 4).

STEP 5: Enjoy!
And that's everything. With this tutorial, you can add RSS feeds, you can access email alerts through your feed reader and you can get RSS-like updates on changes.

For me, the impact has been major. Just in checking for jobs, I'll receive nearly 2500 job postings every week and I can get through them in about 90 minutes. These listings come from around 125 different sites ... it would be impossible for me to check them all each week without RSS feeds.

Remember though, like nearly everything else on the Internet, with the exception of Google Reader, many of these hacks/workarounds are flighty - they won't necessarily be around forever. Many of the tools touted by websites just 2-3 years ago are now gone, so keep that in mind.

Let me know how you like using RSS and Google Reader, and - by all means - let me know if you have questions. I've barely scraped the surface of what you can do with these tools; but the best thing you can do is just play around until you find what works best for you!

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