#8 Make life "really simple" with RSS & a newsreader

For many of you this may be the first time you have heard of RSS, or you may have heard co-workers and acquaintances swear by it, or seen the funny orange tags, but still have no idea what RSS is? Well don’t worry, according to a recent survey you’re still in the majority, but this is changing rapidly. In the information world, RSS is revolutionalising the way information is delivered and consumed by our users.

RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” and is a file format for delivering regularly updated information over the web.

So what is RSS useful for? Some of you may be monitoring a heap of websites which you visit every day, or regularly, to see if anything new has been added or changed. Or some of you may be thinking there is a lot of information out there and would love to check some of it out, but it takes time to visit those sites and scour the ad-filled and image-heavy pages for just the text you want to read, so you've never really got into it. Now imagine if you could visit all those information sources and web pages in just one place and all at the same time … without being bombarded with advertising… with all the new information presented to you up front… and without having to consume a lot of time visiting each site individually. This is now possible using RSS and a newsreader.

This week’s discovery exercises focus on learning about RSS news feeds and setting up a Google Reader account (a free online newsreader) for yourself. Work through some of the Discovery Resources first, these will explain further just what RSS and newsreaders are, then do the discovery exercises.

Discovery Resources:

CNET Video: RSS – Feel the Need for Feeds (3:32) – a good overview of what RSS is and the benefits to users. This worked better for me in IE.

Google Reader Introduction (0:59) - A short video overview of what Google reader is.

Google Reader Tutorial from Secondary Worlds (12:00) - The actual link for the tutorial is on this web page, see the first paragraph and the link "Google Reader Tutorial", save it to your desk top and then open in Media Player. I liked this tutorial. It may be a bit longer but it is simple and concise, and explains the technology well.

What is RSS (3:32) - A short YouTube video by PBriscoe. The image is a bit blurry but it gives a good explanation and direction on RSS and using Google Reader.

Your co-workers - tap into their knowledge or work through your discovery process with them.

Discovery Exercise:

1. Follow the Discovery Resources above to learn more about RSS and newsreaders.

2. Create a free online Google Reader account for yourself and subscribe to at least 5 RSS feeds. You can locate some via Google Reader using the Discover button when you are logged into your reader account, or visit some of the pages listed below.

RSS Feeds:

• University of Newcastle Library News Feed
  
  
• The ABC has a large amount of feeds, locate them from their RSS Feeds Page and subscribe to some.
  
  
• Similarly the newspapers such as SMH have RSS feed pages, see SMH RSS Channels

PS: Once you tackle this discovery exercise, you've tackled the most difficult one of the whole 23. :)

Next Up For This Week: #9 Finding Feeds