What is RSS and How To Use Google Reader

It recently occurred to me that there are a lot of people who don’t know or understand what an RSS feed is and I thought it would be a good idea to write an article to help my readers. I learned about RSS several years ago and remember it being a difficult subject for me to grasp. I just didn’t get it. But then, probably after finding a good article or instructions, the light bulb went off and I was thankful that I finally “got it”, as it can really make following all my “fave” websites a much simpler task.

So here, in this post, I’m going to attempt to give you an overview and then I’m going to show you how to use Google Reader. Google Reader is my favorite free feed reader and I’m sure it will soon become your favorite as well. I’m going to take you through the steps to use Google Reader to bring information to you and make your time on the internet more efficient.

I’m also going to do an article in the next day or two to show you how to use Outlook 2007 as your feed reader. Outlook 2007 is my very favorite feed reader and it’s the one I actually use. I chose to do my first “how to” with Google Reader because it’s free and available to all. Many people either don’t use Outlook or haven’t upgraded to the 2007 version yet, so I wanted to write for the majority today and the rest tomorrow. And just to add a note, any of you who haven’t upgraded your Microsoft Office from 2003 to 2007, in my opinion it’s worth the upgrade (and the learning curve as it’s A LOT different), just to get the feed reader in Outlook 2007. I love it.

Okay, now on with the topic of this post.

What is RSS?

First, in my simplistic way, I want to answer the question, “What is RSS?”. Well, the letters stand for Really Simple Syndication. And believe me it is simple and it will save you a ton of time. Basically, it allows you to bring content, like articles, blog posts, and other information, to one place where you can choose what you want to read. Instead of going to each site everyday, the content is shown in one place and you can read it in one place.

For example, let’s say you read your local newspaper, there are two blogs you absolutely love and try to remember to read everyday (like Internet Marketing Boomer?), and there’s a sports site that gives you all the scores in one place. Without RSS, you would go to each site to read the info you want to read. You probably have all the sites set up in your “Favorites” and just go down the list.

With RSS there would be no need to go to each site. You open your feed reader and all the new content for the sites you choose is listed. If the website owner chooses to have the full article fed to feed readers, you can read the entire article right there in your feed reader. If you prefer to go to the site, you can click the link in the feed reader that will take you directly to the article or post. This is especially helpful when there is no new content as you won’t waste time going to that site to find nothing new has been posted. To me, it’s like having all the news and information that YOU want to read brought to you each day in a nice neat package. You don’t have to fiddle around with the things you don’t care about.

Feed Readers

A feed reader is kind of like your email program, it’s the program that brings all the content to your computer, just like your email program brings you your email (that’s probably why I like to use Outlook 2007 for my feed reader, it not only brings my email but my feeds as well, and they all look the same, one place for everything). There are a lot of feed readers to choose from, some you can even pay for but it’s not necessary. In my opinion Google Reader is the best free feed reader available and actually, other than Outlook 2007, it’s probably the best available period.

Okay, now let’s talk about Google Reader specifically and how to use it.

What’s really great about Google Reader is it gives you the ability to share the content you think is good with your friends. However, your friends will need to know how to use the reader as well and I find that’s not always the case (that’s why I LOVE Outlook 2007 but I digress).

To set up Google Reader go to www.google.com. The link will open in a new window so you can come back here and follow the steps.

Click on the “more…” link at the top of the page and choose “Reader” from the dropdown menu.

If you don’t have a Google Account, you’ll need to create one at this point. I’m not going to explain that other than to tell you to click on the big blue button at the bottom right that says, “Create An Account”. After you’ve created an account and signed-in, you will be taken to the following page.

Next you’ll want to take the “Tour” and then “Get Started”.

Next go to your favorite site and find the feed link, the feed link will normally always have the orange button with the wave type lines on it. Additionally if the site offers a feed, you’ll see that button in the address bar:

On the following page you need to click on the Google button:

Next you’ll have a choice to add the subscription to your Google Homepage or your Google Reader. Choose Google Reader:

You will then be taken to your view or “reading” page.

As you add more websites, they will be listed in the left-hand column. Just click on the site you want to read and the articles show up in the right-hand column.

There are a lot of other features offered by Google Reader and I’m just covering how to get started. Be sure to check out any videos and help featured offered at Google Reader and before long, you’ll be an expert.

In a future post I’ll show you Outlook 2007 and why I love it so much. I’m going to be experimenting with screen capture videos so maybe I’ll come back and add a video to this post later today.

Hope this information helped you to understand RSS and how to use a feed reader, specifically Google Reader. As you can see it’s really simple, so don’t hesitate, go get your own Google Reader set up with your fave websites and don’t forget to include your’s truly, Internet Marketing Boomer. Here’s a link to our feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/InternetMarketingBoomer

Cheers!

Reba

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