Relief: A Quarterly Christian Expression - Why Writers Need to Subscribe to RSS Feeds

Why Writers Need to Subscribe to RSS Feeds

Written by Heather von Doehren

Monday, 26 May 2008

Relief Assistant Editor Heather von Doehren teaches writers about the need for RSS feeds, popular feed readers, and about how to subscribe to your favorite websites' RSS feeds.

Over the course of our series on Writers and Technology, I’ve heard a fair amount of people say that the Internet just “takes up too much of their time.” It’s true. Blogging and Internet surfing can take time away from your “real” writing. But a fair amount of the business side to writing involves staying in touch with a lot of writing websites, news, events, and resources. The good news is, you can really limit the amount of time you spend surfing by subscribing to RSS Feeds.

Q: What is an RSS feed?

A: An RSS feed (which stands for Really Simple Syndication) brings your favorite websites to you rather than the other way around. For example, let’s say you keep typing in our URL because you can’t wait to see what the Relief bloggers will write about next. Well, you opening a web browser and typing in a link (or even clicking a bookmarked link) takes time. Well, subscribing to a website’s RSS feed means that you don’t have to keep checking back. As soon as content on your favorite website changes or updates, that article will appear in the “inbox” of your RSS reader.

Q: How do I subscribe to an RSS feed?

A: Well, you need some kind of feed reader. Most email programs will be equipped with this ability, but there are many to choose from.

There are web-based feed readers such as…

There are email readers (you probably already use these for email) such as…

Thunderbird
Outlook

Personally, I use Outlook 2007, which upon opening my email Outlook will download any new content just as if it were an email. To add new feeds, all you have to do is right-click on the RSS Feeds folder and click “Add New RSS Feed.” Then it’s just a matter of copying and pasting the RSS link.

And there are many stand alone RSS applications you can install directly on your computer…

FeedDemon – Don’t let the name fool you!
NewzCrawler
SharpReader

And that’s just to name a few!

Still confused? Not convinced? There are a lot of other sites out there that explain RSS feeds better than I can.

To subscribe to the Relief feed:

Acquire one of the above RSS readers. I’d recommend Google if you are still confused.
Visit our website and click the above RSS Feed button located at the very top of this website.
Copy the URL and paste it inside your RSS reader to the appropriate place.
Just sit back and wait for quality content to come to you!

Next time, we’ll be talking about additional ways to make you writers more tech savvy with a little something called ‘social bookmarking.’ So stay tuned!

Related Articles:

Heather von Doehren is a former English teacher turned computer applications instructor (which works out well for Relief as she wears many hats, both literary and technical). Check out her video on How to Format Submissions Using Microsoft Word 2007!

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Monica - google reader is my BFF

|2008-05-26 20:15:23

at Google reader, it's even easier than that. all you have to do is type
www.reliefjournal.com in the subscribe box. no need to do that lengthy feed.
it's the same for bloglines.