How do I keep up with the blogs I like?

Often, one must experience the problem before appreciating the solution. As we look find blogs that we want to visit often, we will invariably find we need some efficient way to manage them. How do we know when new posts have been added? Where can we keep up with the URL for each one?

RSS
The answer is something called “Really Simple Syndication” (“RRS” for short). How simple is it? When I find a blog I like, I “subscribe” to it. From that point on, any time there is a new post in that blog, the post appears as simply another e-mail message. The act of checking my e-mail also checks every one of those blogs for new posts.

How do I get started?
You will need an “RSS reader.” The one I use is called intraVnews. It is free for personal use, charities, and non-profit organizations. You can download it from here.

The system requirements are:

Microsoft .Net Framework 1.1. (Click the link to download it)

Article Comments

Matthew Cornell
October 17, 2006 8:38 am Reply

I agree that using an RSS feed reader is a great way to a) integrate information sources, and b) get them out of the email inbox. That said, I think the question then becomes how to manage the great number of feeds. I’d like to hear about how you manage them.
Dr. Frank Buck
October 17, 2006 11:49 am Reply

I created one subfolder in my Outlook Inbox called “RSS Feeds.” Each time I subscribe to a blog, I have the posts go to that one folder. Since those are all going to be pretty low on the priority list, I have them sent to that one folder, which keeps “In” from getting too full of noise. When I go to that folder, I sort it by “From.” That puts all of the posts from one blog right together.

Right now, I subscribe to 8 blogs, and the number of posts they generate is small. There might be a dozen posts that accumulate over a few days. *If* on the other hand, I was having to go to each of 8 blogs on a regular basis to see if anything had been updated, that would quickly become a pain in the neck.