Journal # 9
Web 2.0 Technology
RSS and Readers

RSS stands for Rich Site Syndication, although it is more commonly referred to as ‘Really Simple Syndication’. It is a series of web feed formats which are used to publish frequently updated content, for example, blog entries, news headlines or podcasts. An RSS document, which is also called a “feed”, “web feed”, or “channel”, contains details of the content from a related web site or the full text. RSS enables people to automatically keep up to date with their favorite web sites, rather than manually checking for updates.

The RSS reader (feed reader, or aggregator) software is used to read RSS content. It is necessary to subscribe to a feed by inputting the feed’s link into the reader or by clicking on the RSS icon in a browser. The reader will check the user’s subscribed feeds regularly for any updated content, and will download any new updates.
The most popular RSS readers are:
Bloglines (www.bloglines.com)
Google Reader (www.google.com/reader)
Feedbucket (www.feedbucket.com)

James was looking for a reliable RSS Reader that was easy to navigate so that his school library could get updates on information that was only available on the Net. He had used the Google RSS Reader but was not impressed.

Richard suggested using www.pageflakes.com both as a homepage and a reader.

Bloglines appears to be popular, http://www.bloglines.com/. Two other bloggers agreed that Bloglines was the way to go. Laura Gibbs, from the University of Oklahoma, suggested using Bloglines, http://www.bestmoodle.net/ks/blogger/bl_account.htm (which is a link to her homepage for her students) for RSS feeds as she uses it regularly in her classroom. Laura describes it as a very primitive blogging tool but it is integrated with the RSS management features and is easy to use. When her students post their Bloglines blogs, her RSS feeds for the students update instantly. It has improved communication with her students. Her students usually comment on each others blogs and she is able to alert the students if there is a problem with their post, for example, if they have included a large image which makes the text in their post scroll off the screen, she can inform them immediately.

I found that Bloglines accounts are free and easy to set up. The user has to subscribe to the “feeds”, which are then listed in the left pane. When new posts are received, they appear in bold showing that they have not been read. It also shows the number of new feeds listed in parentheses. Just click on the title of the feed to view new posts. It’s good to organize the feeds into folders to track different types of subscriptions.