#8 Make Life "Really Simple" with RSS & a Newsreader


You’ve heard of RSS? You’ve seen those small funny tags on websites? You’ve heard co-workers and acquaintances swear by it, 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 not only revolutionalizing the way news, media and content creators share information, but it also is swiftly changing the way everyday users are consuming information.

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

Just think about the websites and news information sources you visit every day. It takes time to visit those sites and scour the ad-filled and image-heavy pages for just the text you want to read, doesn’t 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… without having to search for new information on the page you’d already seen or read before… and without having to consume a lot of time visiting each site individually. Would that be valuable to you? Well, it’s available now through a newsreader and RSS.

This week’s discovery exercises focus on learning about RSS news feeds and setting up a Bloglines account (a free online newsreader) for yourself to bring your feeds together.

Discovery Resources:

• Common Craft Video– RSS in Plain English – a good over view of what RSS is and the benefits to users.
  Hint: Click the pause button to let the video completely load in your browser before clicking the play button.


• Feed Me: A gentle introduction to Internet feeds - a good tutorial from Palinet, a library cooperative


• Using Bloglines Tutorial (how to keep up with dozens of blogs everyday) – This online tutorial walks you through how to setup a Bloglines account and add newsfeeds. Follow Steps 1 to 3 to set up your Bloglines account. Steps 4 – 9 are optional and cover how to subscribe to different types of feeds (podcasts, Flickr albums, etc)


• Adding RSS Feeds to Bloglines - A short YouTube video that created for the original Learning 2.0 project showing how to add feeds.


• Additional Bloglines news feed subcription information (screenshot image)


• Your co-workers - tap into their knowledge or work through your discovery process together. Many JPL staff are already savy in using RSS feeds and bloglines. Seek them out and ask them to show what they know.

Discovery Exercise:

1. Follow the discovery resources above to learn more about RSS and newsreaders.


2. Create a free online Bloglines account for yourself and subscribe to at least 10 newsfeeds to your reader. See Using Bloglines Tutorial steps 1-3 for instructions.
   
   Newsfeeds:
   
   
   • L2 participant blog feeds - Subscribe to several of your co-workers' feeds. This is as easy as typing the blog URL into the subscribe field in Bloglines. Try it, it's easy!
   
   
   • Make sure you've allowed site feeds from your own blog. It's in the Settings tab under site feeds.
   
   
   • Then try adding a few other types of news feeds from news sources.
     
     The Learning 2.0 blog feed
     
     Unshelved - Library cartoon feed
     
     One of the blogs listed in Discovery Exercise #7
     
   
   
3. Create a post in your blog about this exercise. Optional: If you're up to the challenge, you can provide the URL address to your public bloglines account (find where to find this below)

Don’t know what to blog about? Think about these questions:

What do you like about RSS and newsreaders?
How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your work or personal life?
How can libraries use RSS or take advantage of this new technology?

How to find your public Bloglines URL:

1. Once you've created your account in Bloglines, click on the Bloglines logo to return to the Bloglines home page


2. Click on "Share" to go to the Blogroll Wizard


3. Follow the instructions to locate the public URL (see screenshot)


4. Important: Be sure to add this as part of your post to demonstrate your completion of this activity.


5. Post a comment to this blog with a link to your blog post.

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