How to use an RSS feed in simple terms

RSS stands for really simple syndication. Kind of ironic since it is not "really" so simple to most people. However, hopefully I will be able to shed some light on this and get you started using rss feeds as a way to save you time, perhaps a lot of time.

If you spend even a little time on the internet you know how valuable it can be and also how much time it can take. You probably find yourself visiting the same sites to see if there is anything new. In particular, you may have several blogs you follow, perhaps those of your family members or friends that live across the country. Perhaps you need to stay current in the industry in which you work and find that you have multiple places that you visit often for that. All of that is TIME!

In your travels on the internet, you have likely seen a lot of RSS orange symbols on websites or blogs. You may have also seen the words "subscribe" or other symbols under the text "subscribe". These are your portals to saving time. The more you read on the internet, the more time these will allow you to save.

First, let me say that there are many rss feed readers out there. Each have there pros and cons. For the sake of simple, I will give you directions for just 1 of them in this article.

1. Go to http://www.google.com/reader
2. If you have a google account of some kind, then login with that info. If not, then sign up for a google account here. It will prompt you on how to do this.
3. Once that is set up, then go to one of those websites or blogs that you frequent and look for the orange, "RSS" icon or the "subscribe" link and click on it.

4. It may ask you (or provide a drops down menu) of RSS readers that you can send that to. Choose Google.
5. Then, go back to http://www.google.com/reader and take a look. You will notice that the info that was on that page, is also now there in your own google reader.
6. Now go and "subscribe" to all of the "RSS" feeds that cn be found on the sites that you frequent and want to stay current on.
7. Now, everyday (or however frequent you would like) you can go to 1 website (google reader) and stay current on as many sites as you would like. This is how you save the time.

8. Start to explore the tabs and settings in the reader and you can find what works best for you. Mostly the settings change the way the information is displayed to you. The goal is to get the information from whom you want, when you want, in the way that you want. Kind of like Tivo is to TV.
9. The advanced step to this is if you have an iphone or ipod you can also set things up to sync your rss feeds to these devices so that now you have them on the go (furthering the potential to save time and get it the way you want). But that is something for another time.