By now if you have had a look around Technorati and starting surfing the web using the StumbleUpon Toolbar, you will have no doubt found yourself an amazing number of blogs that you would like to keep up to date with.
In a previous post I gave a very generic introduction to the How To RSS Feeds. Today I will take you through a step by step guide on how to use RSS to subscribe to blogs.
I will use my reader (Google Reader) as an example of how to do this, but the process will be very similar regardless of which reader you choose to do.
STEP 1 - THE RSS ICON
Locate the RSS icon on the blog that you would like to subscribe to. The read arrow points out what you should be looking for. Click on the RSS icon to add it to your reader.
STEP 2 - SELECTING YOUR READER
On this page you will be given a range of web based and other type readers to choose from. For me I simply click on the Google button, which I have pointed out with the red arrow. If you were using a reader in Outlook you would choose the “View Feed XML” option.
STEP 4 - ADDING TO READER
On this page I need to choose the “Add to Google Reader” button as pointed out with the red arrow.
STEP 5 - SUCCESSFULLY SUBSCRIBED
The blog has now been added to my reader. You will note that the arrow on the left points to the Previous Item and Next Item buttons. You can use these to click through the posts that have been added to your reader.
When you add a new blog to your reader, how many items it adds to your reader will depend on what the blog owner has set up for their feed. It is usually between 5 - 10 items, but some may have more. The red arrow on the right points to the number of items that are unread for this blog, which in this case is 10.
STEP 6 - ADDING TO FOLDER
If you look to where the green arrow is pointing you will see a drop down menu titled “Feed Settings”. This allows you to manage your subscriptions efficiently by adding them to folders.
For example some of the folders that I have in my reader are mum blogs, dad blogs, craft blogs, recipe blogs. So when I click on the Feed Settings, I can scroll down and add this blog to mum blogs.
If you haven’t made any folders yet, scroll through until the end of the drop down menu and click on the “New Folder” option and name the folder as you wish. Having folders makes it easier to find blogs, if you are wishing to read one particular one.
STEP 7 - READING NEW ITEMS
When you go back to your reader, you can easily see what blogs have new items. The red arrow points to bolded blogs. If a blog is in bold, it means that there are unread items. The number in brackets, tells you exactly how many items are unread for that blog.
It also will tell you this information for the folder. In this instance Mum Blogs has new items and the actual number is 101. (As you can probably tell, I haven’t checked my reader for a couple of days!)
So now as you are web surfing, for blogs that you would like to stay updated with, just look for the RSS Icon and add them to your reader!
How does Google promote its own free online email service as the best place to set up email address? Take 4:21 to watch this video and they will explain the following for benefits of Gmail:
I have written of my own personal positive experience with Gmail, but I thought I would collate for you other reviews of the Gmail service.
This information should help in you if you are making a decision about setting up email address or if you are considering to moving to an online email service.
Check them out and they should convince you that Gmail is the best place to set up email address.
In my last, I explained how to download the StumbleUpon Toolbar and how you can the use the StumbleUpon Toolbar to web surf through areas of your interest.
Today I want to look at how you can add sites that you like to StumbleUpon. Like the majority of social media sites, StumbleUpon is based on a community principle. To be a successful web surfing tool, StumbleUpon relies on its members submitting quality blogs, websites, photos and videos.
If you have favourite sites that you visit regularly, you can choose to give the whole site the “Thumbs Up” or a particular page or post a “Thumbs Up”.
I will use my other blog to illustrate this. If I wanted to tell StumbleUpon that I thought the the whole website was great I would ensure that the url address in my browser look like this:
But if I wanted to “Thumb Up” a particular post, then I would click on the title of the post, so I would have the permalink for this post as the url address. It would look something like this:
Once you have the right address in your browser you click on the “Thumbs Up”. Now if you are the first person to submit this post or site, a box like that illustrated below will pop up.
You then complete the required information in the box, as I have done in this example.
If you click on the “Thumbs Up” and someone else has already submitted this site, StumbleUpon will record this as a favourite and you will see that the “Thumbs Up” icon on your StumbleUpon Toolbar will change from blue to green. If you would like to add a review as well, you can click on the speech bubble icon and you can then add your own review.
Remember you can add a variety of mediums using the StumbleUpon Toolbar - websites, blogs, photos and videos.
The quality of what you see when you websurf with StumbleUpon is dependent upon the StumbleUpon community, so make sure that you are adding quality material to StumbleUpon.
StumbleUpon describes itself in the following way:
“StumbleUpon discovers web sites based on your interests. Whether it’s a web page, photo or video, our personalized recommendation engine learns what you like, and brings you more.”
To use StumbleUpon you need to download the StumbleUpon Toolbar and install it. During the installation process the StumbleUpon Toolbar will be embedded into your browser. The StumbleUpon Toolbar has different versions for Firefox, Mozilla Application Suite and Internet Explorer.
The simplest analogy for StumbleUpon would be to compare it to your TVs remote control. You can just flick through the available channels and stop and look at what interests you. The Stumble! button on the StumbleUpon Toolbar is just like the channel up button on your TV remote control. You click the Stumble! button and you can flick through websites, photos or videos depending on your settings.
Once you have downloaded the StumbleUpon Toolbar you can then set your preferences for what sort of media Stumble will show you. In the preferences section there are 100s of areas of interests that you can choose to see information on. For example I have currently 21 areas of interest that I have selected to see websites, photos or videos on, which I have copied below:
Activism Australia Babies Children’s Books Country music Crafts Family For Kids Homemaking Independent Film K-12 Education Liberal Politics Parenting Politics Psychology Rugby Sewing/Quilting Shakespeare Sociology Teen Parenting Women’s Issues
This provides me with quite of mix of interests that I can flick through. As you are flicking through these items you have the choice to give them the “Thumbs Up” by clicking that button on the StumbleUpon Toolbar or the “Thumbs Down”.
Clicking on the “Thumbs Up” will save that website to your favourites on StumbleUpon and tell StumbeUpon to show more like this to you. If you click the “Thumbs Down”, you tell StumbleUpon not to show you any more sites like this.
This is the very basics of StumbleUpon. In my next post on StumbleUpon I will explain how you can use the StumbleUpon Toolbar when you are checking out other sites and add them to StumbleUpon with your review.
So far I have encouraged you to set up email address and then a feed reader to keep up to date with blogs, news etc. It is important not to just join all forms of social media though. The relevance of some services may be very low to you and of course there is also overload, where you have signed up to a number of services and are then bombarded by too much information.
Try asking yourself the following questions:
- Do you have a hobby or interest that you would like the latest information on?
- Do you want to use social media to promote your business or product?
- How much time do you want to spend on social media?
- Do you want services to help keep you organised?
- Do you just want to have fun and make new contacts?
The first question is partly covered off by setting up a reader. There are other ways to come across new items in your field of interest, one which I am a big fan of is StumbleUpon and I will talk about how StumbleUpon works in my next post.
In my last post I explained how you could find blogs to subscribe to on Technorati, to fill your chosen feed reader. Today I will show you how you can subscribe to what other people are reading.
The process that I describe here is specifically with Google Reader. In Google Reader there is the option to share an item that you have read in your reader. If you click on this function you then share that item with either the general public or chosen friends, depending on your settings.
Google Reader have launched Power Readers in Politics which inlcudes politicians and key journalists involved in the 2009 American Election.
From the Power Readers in Politics page you can then click on the personality you desire and subscribe to their shared items. Anything that they have read and shared, will then appear in your Google Reader.
If you would like to see what I have been enjoying reading from my Google Reader click on the link to check it out.
If you are not sure where to start with all this, try going back to my earlier post on Setting Up Email Address.
An authoritative first place to start is Technorati. Defined in simple terms Technorati is a search engine for blogs. When you go to Technorati there is numerous ways to search for blogs. I would recommend the following searches for newcomers to Technorati:
Technorati Top 100 Blogs
This lists the top 100 blogs that have been listed with Technorati, by either their authority or the number of fans they have.
Authority within the realm of Technorati means the number of blogs linking to a website in the last six months. The higher the number, the more Technorati Authority the blog has.
Fans are the number of Technorati members that have added that blog to their favourites on Technorati.
You can scroll through this list and see if any blogs appeal to you. This search is good to use if you have broad interests or would like to keep up to date with the biggest blogs on the internet.
Technorati Blog Directory
This directory lists blogs under categories and sub categories. For example if you were interested in blogs on written by mums, you would find them listed under the category of Lifestyle and sub category of Parenting.
It is important to note that blogs must be “claimed” or listed on Technorati to be on the directories, so not all blogs that are on the internet are listed on this site. It does however have one of the most comprehensive blog directories that you will find on the internet, so it is a great place to start if you would like to find blogs to subscribe to.
Common Craft made this video and posted it on You Tube. YouTube is a video sharing website where users can upload, view and share video clips.
The video is aimed at those on the internet that have not yet learned the how to of RSS feeds. The video goes for under four minutes and is explained in “plain english”. Diagrams are also used to illustrate the concept of RSS in an easy to understand way. This should compliment my previous explanation of How To RSS Feeds.
Darren Rowse is the force behind Problogger. He is a full time professional blogger with a subscribed readership of over 45,000 people.
In April Rowse lamented on Twitter about his exploding email inbox. Many of his followers sent him advice an tips to help him manage the 10,000 emails he had in his inbox.
So how did he get his email under control? He set up a Gmail address!
“Within 24 hours I had an inbox with no items in it (well momentarily) and have been able to maintain that ever since (OK, so it’s only three days, but it’s been a very busy three days).”
