Finally a Great Tool for RSS Newbies
Thursday, September 14th, 2006If you have to read the Wikipedia entry for RSS to understand what it is, then this post could change your life. And I’m not joking.
Even RSS pros out there (especially Blackberry carrying types, like my wife) will appreciate the fancy new Web2.0 tool that I am about to introduce you to.
It’s called The Simply Headlines Experiment, and I found it via Steve Rubel.
Here’s the best way to describe it (in my words)…
It takes the latest entries from your chosen feeds, ie. http://feeds.feedburner.com/TellTenFriends (hint hint) and it turns them into news items in a cleverly designed newspaper format that you can receive in your email. You have the choice of text only, or html, as you see above. Also, it has a bunch of feeds already set up to choose from (CNN, Reuters, etc.).
So all you have to do is take the feed address from wherever you see this symbol: and paste it into the program. And voila! You’ll get your chosen items delivered daily in your email. Sound easy? Go here to sign up, and if you have any trouble, just ask me for help and I’d be happy to talk you through it. Before you know it, you’ll have a customized Google homepage riddled with dozens of feeds, or like me your Bloglines account will see action from upwards of 100 different sources (I know, I’m a bit of a junkie).
The time to make a significant jump in your understanding of technology is now. This tool has been created for you, to help you bridge the gap into one of the most exciting things to happen to media since the first television flickered to life. Perhaps that sounds a bit hyperbolic, but bear with me. The true extent of RSS’ influence on the way we receive news and connect with both each other and of course our customers won’t be seen for years to come. In time though, the bulk of internet users will get wise to the use of feeds, and they will be incredibly prevalent as part of our culture. What I mean by this is, not just my brother or my sister but indeed my Mother will, in her lifetime use RSS feeds as her main source of news. This may sound like a bold prediction, but you don’t know my Mom.
Cheers all, I hope you like it. And I said a few paragraphs ago, I’d be happy to help you get this set up, if you have troubles with it.