RSS

If you’ve ever seen one of these symbols and did not know what it means, this is an RSS symbol.  RSS is an acronym that stands for “real simple syndication”.  In spite of the snarchy nickname, RSS is an incredibly useful tool.

RSS revolves around blogging and similar formats of information delivery that generate a continuous flow of information.  Whether you realize it or not, many of your most visited websites are written in a blog form, with each new post being logged in RSS.  Here are some RSS feeds you can get from CNN.com for example.  Each blog has an RSS address, usually linked to by that little symbol at the top of this post.

Without getting into too many technical details, RSS enables a website to have a method for people to subscribe to their content that doesn’t mean filling up their email inbox.

Some of my more tech savvy friends say that the internet will eventually all be delivered this way, that the search engine will only be used for specific content research.  The sites you regularly visit will come to you rather than you going to them.  Pretty cool, huh?

Using RSS is a “real simple” way to cut down on your web browsing, yet still allow you the time to read ESPN, Perez Hilton, or your BFF whining about her boyfriend breaking up with her.

I personally use Google Reader, since I’m a google homer and I can link it off of my gmail accounts but there are other readers out there.

If you desire to start using RSS, the first thing to do would be to set up a reader account.  I think Google Reader is excellent, to set up an account visit “reader.google.com“.  To subscribe, there are generally two ways.  One is to add the “subscribe” button, available within Google Reader, to your browser.  Then if you’re reading something that you’d like to keep up with, simply click on the subscribe button and you’re in!  The other way is to click on the RSS symbol on the page you’re on, this might be in your address bar or on the page itself.  You’ll usually get a message asking which reader you use, after selecting that, it will direct you towards the next steps.

Being a person with a diversity of reading interests, I was subscribed to a large number of blogs.  Often my RSS Reader would have over 100 articles in it each day, with maybe 20 of them being something that I would actively read.  Rather than trying to troll through these unorganized and unfettered, I decided to try filtering.

I assigned each of the blogs that I read to a group setting, 7 groups in total.  I really didn’t separate these out a tremendous amount, preferring categories like “politics” and “sports”.  I’ve found that this more than simplifies my readings.  I may skim the Red Sox play by play blogs, but I’ll probably want to really read something from Mises or Freakanomics.  Filtering helps me to keep things in order and allows me to pick up the content that I skim all at once, while allowing me to read the things I want to spend some time on at a later date.

Filters can be easily set up using the settings tag in Google Reader.  You should then go to your subscriptions and add them to the folder you request.  Google tends to fairly intuitive, this is not overly complicated.