RSS

What Is It?
The orange logo on the computer screen is the universal RSS logo; look for this button on your favorite blog or website in order to subscribe.
 * RSS** stands for **R**eal **S**imple **S**yndication. It's a fast and easy way of having content from blogs, wikis, and other sources delivered directly to you. Instead of visiting multiple blogs to read articles, their articles get sent directly to one central location called an **RSS Reader**, which you can then access from your computer:
 * // RSS Diagram, //**// by [|Jason Rhode] ([|License]) //

Four popular online RSS readers are:

[|Google Reader] //(log in with your Google/Gmail ID & password, if you already have one)// [|Bloglines] [|Newsgator] [|Netvibes]

As the illustration above indicates, you can use your RSS Reader to track content from many different types of media, from news sites to blogs to podcasts. Wikispaces even provides an option to track wiki edits via RSS!

Shared Items
Google Reader has a feature called Shared Items; when you read a blog post that you think is worthy of sharing with others, just click the **Share** icon at the bottom of each post: That automatically sends that article to your Shared Items feed, where others can subscribe to the "Greatest Hits" of your RSS reader. This is useful not only for sharing articles with your blogging audience, but also with students who can access your shared feed through their own RSS readers.

Your Assignment

 * Create an account with one of the RSS Reader services listed above (or one of your own choosing)
 * Go back to any of the blogs you visited earlier today, as well as any favorite blogs or websites of your own
 * Subscribe to at least **10** RSS "feeds" and organize them in your reader
 * Using links from your 10 initial sources, find other blogs or sites that may interest you and subscribe to their feeds

Further Viewing
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 * //RSS in Plain English//**, by Lee LeFever, The CommonCraft Show