RSS Feeds

[mellivora]

They were mysterious to me for a long time. But I think I get it now. Is it like Google Reader? I think I love Google Reader. It keeps track of blogs that I read. It's a reader, I'm a reader, we're all readers, yay! I feel so informed, so plugged in. I feel hip and trendy with my empty cup of Red Mango yogurt (kind of like Pinkberry, a

Comments

[sweet_byrd]

Yeah, RSS works on the same idea as Google Reader -- pushing new information to the end user so the user doesn't have to search for it (and is therefore more likely to be aware of and /or use that information).

I totally couldn't do my job without RSS feeds (granted that I have job that is weird that way, but still). I use Sage with my Firefox, and I couldn't be happier with it, even though it is pretty basic.

But I do know of a couple of RSS-related gadgets you might appreciate:

SendMeRSS will scoop the info out of RSS feeds and email it to you (so you don't have to wrestle with more browser widgets, if you find the format of an RSS feed hard to read and need bigger font, if you'll be out of town without your laptop and want to keep up with your RSS feeds, so you can push an RSS feed to someone else ...).

And PonyFish lets you create your own RSS feed for any web page -- particularly handy when the page doesn't offer an RSS feed, but you really wish it did.

off topic -- are you on del.icio.us?

[juniorbird]

RSS feeds aren't just like Google Reader -- Google Reader is a Web application that lets you read RSS feeds. RSS is a basic data format (like, say, a Word .doc is a data format) that can be read by Web applications like Google Reader, specialist applications, and even Firefox itself. If you publish an RSS feed of your site, then your visitors can consume the content you provide using applications other than their browser. You can also add other peoples' RSS feeds -- such as the feed for my blog -- to your Google Reader. LiveJournal also offers their paid members the option to create feeds from the RSS feeds other sites provide. For instance, a friend of mine created such a feed from my blog that's up at juniorbird_feed.

We have Red Mango and Pinkberry both here -- in fact, they're about equidistant from my house! My GF is trying both consistently to see which is better. No verdict yet; I suspect the trials will continue for months.