The Problem
If you’re like most Internet users, you’ve probably got a list of 10 to 20 sites that you read on a daily basis. The process of visiting these sites can take anywhere from 20 minutes to more than an hour and finding something interesting to read is generally hit or miss. Eventually, your 10 to 20 sites becomes 30 or more and you have no time to read through the bad articles to find something good. That’s where RSS (Really Simple Syndication) fits in.

Now that everyone who knows about RSS has left, I can tell the rest of you to not be worried. There is nothing difficult about what lies ahead. Your daily read will not be affected, except for the fact that it will take a third of the time and you’ll only visit the sites that you know have something for you. The first step is to understand what RSS is and how it works. I promise to be brief, as descriptions of the technology get boring quick. In two minutes, you’ll have done all you need to be up and running in the Web 2.0 world.

The Solution
To repeat, RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and can be found on most sites as “feeds”, “subscribe”, “xml”, “rss”, or simply the icon . In order to use RSS you need a reader, of which there are many. To keep things simple, I’ll show you how to use my favorite online reader, Bloglines.

At Bloglines, you simply sign up for an account like any other web site and then provide the URL (think “www”) to your desired RSS feeds. Once you’ve done that, Bloglines does the rest of the work. No, I’m not kidding. Yes, it is that simple.

If you don’t already have a Bloglines account, click here (a new window or tab will open). Once you’re done (you’ll need to validate your e-mail address), leave that window open and come back here.

After you’ve created your account, a new page will display with two sections. On the right is information about Bloglines (and probably a message about you needing to confirm your e-mail address). On the left is where you’re list of feeds will reside. Click on “Add” in the left-hand section to bring up a page on the right where you can add feeds. In the “Blog or Feed URL” textbox, enter “http://www.livingorlando.com/feed” and click the Subscribe button. On the next page, leave all of the default options as they are and click the Subscribe button again. In the left-hand section, you should see “Living Orlando (10)”. Click on that link …

Amazing. Living Orlando is now being delivered directly to you. This can be true for most of your favorite sites. Just look for their feed and then add it to your Bloglines account. In no time, your hour-long search through dozens of websites will be cut down to minutes on only one site. It’s truly the best way to keep track of what’s going on in the world.

Tips
1. Since Bloglines is just a website, you can login to your account from any computer and see your feeds.
2. Subscribing to a feed can be made easier by following the directions on this page.
3. Subscribing to a feed can be easier than that if you tell your browser how to handle RSS feeds. Just click on “Subscribe” and see what your browser does. You should have the option to add the feed directly to your Bloglines account.
4. Within Bloglines you can organize your feeds however you want. Use the “Edit” feature to create folders for similar feeds.

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