RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, is a way to deliver changes to a web site. It saves time when you are following numerous blogs or web sites because you don’t have to go to multiple sites to stay current. Although most sites give you the options to subscribe to updates via email, it may result in too many messages in your inbox. Also, there may only be a few headlines that are of interest and you end up scrolling through a long email to find what you want to read.
What does this look like? There are numerous feeds out there and one I am partial to is Netvibes. For an example of what this looks like, check out the public page used at Coastal Community Foundation. Each newspaper has it’s own tab, so people can easily find the articles that are of interest. There’s also a tab with widgets showing all of Coastal Community Foundation’s social media channels.
So how do you get started? Select a reader. Netvibes is very easy and does not require any downloads to your computer. Find the sites that interest you and look for the orange icon (it will look like the image in this post). (Or, it may simply be listed as an “RSS feed”). When you subscribe to the feed, you’ll see a link that you need to copy. Paste this link into your reader. In Netvibes, you will see “Add content”, then “Add a feed”. Once you do this, you are ready to go!