2009-03-17 RSS explained
From Walkerpedia
This was originally sent to my email subscribers as part of my Tuesday emails series.
Hello chaps. How's it going? Having fun with Twitter?
If you are, be sure to let me know (@ihatemornings). If you're not on Twitter yet, you're not alone. It takes a bit of a leap of faith to get started and there are some common misconceptions about Twitter, mostly started by broadsheet journos. I read a wonderful blog post by Steve Lawson yesterday that argues against the most common myths ("It's a waste of time", "It's like reality TV", "It rots your brain") and explains the beauty of Twitter better than I could. I highly recommend giving it a read:
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How did I find that blog post so quickly?
I use Google Reader to read my favourite blogs. I follow about fifty blogs, and I don't have time to open up fifty tabs every morning to see whether they have written anything new. I also don't want thirty emails a day telling me that blogs have been updated.
Every blog (and a lot of other websites) publishes an RSS feed. It's nothing more than a machine-readable version of the blog. It means that when I open up Google Reader in the morning I see a nicely formatted list of new articles from my favourite blogs. I can scan through the list, read the ones that look interesting and get on with more important stuff. It takes about 7 or 8 minutes a day for me to read and process fifty blogs.
How do you make it work?
There are loads of other websites and applications you can use to read RSS feeds, but I recommend Google Reader. It takes about 30 seconds to sign up (less if you already have a Google account). Try it out:
If you can't think of any blogs to read, why not start with mine? Just click the 'Add subscription' button in Google Reader and type in 'http://ihatemornings.com'. There's another way to subscribe to a blog too (it's called 'subscribing' when you sign up to read a blog): go to any website and find the 'subscribe' button. It's sometimes called 'RSS' or 'Feed', and it usually has an orange icon next to it.
I'm feeding the world with RSS
I publish a few different RSS feeds. There's one for my blog, one for my Tumblr (shorter blog posts, links and personal stuff), and now one for the updates on Ben's Big Gig:
What's "Ben's Big Gig"?
Only the most exciting thing to happen to North Oxford since Marks & Spencer. I'm putting on a Big Gig at the North Wall theatre on South Parade on May 1st, and tickets are on sale now!
There's going to be music, comedy, special guests, booze, lights, magic and two hundred amazing people coming together for a great night out. And on top of that, it's going to be broadcast live on the internet, and we're going to have messages from fans around the world piped into the theatre, making it a truly global event.
I'm so excited I made a website for it. Go and check it out!:
http://bensbiggig.ihatemornings.com
Because it's a theatre rather than a pub, the tickets are for specific seats. So if you want to be down at the front with the cool kids, get over to the North Wall site and book tickets today. The links are all on the website. There are student discounts too (£5 tickets!) if you book in advance.
Have a beautiful week ;)
Enjoy your brand new Google Reader habit, and use the time you save to go outside and walk around in the springtime sun. And if you get the chance, go and see Age Of Stupid at the cinema. It's a brilliant climate change documentary that made my brain explode:
Until next time, mes amis,
Ben
PS. I'm putting rehearsal videos up on http://bensbiggig.tumblr.com
PPS. In case you're not following me on Twitter, you shouldn't miss valuable information like this:
PPPS. Radio 4's 'PM' show used my Twitter song the other day. Unattributed. Luckily I don't pay the license fee, so we're even. ;)
