I’m about ready to save hundreds of you a lot of time. How? Let me introduce you to Bloglines.com. I use it to track updates on close to 100 different websites each day. I get to choose what sites I subscribe to, and Bloglines lets me know whenever any of those sites has new content. No more surfing from site to site. All the content comes automatically to me.
Ever wondered what this orange icon with the white radio wave-like symbol was all about? That’s an indication that the site you are visiting has an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed available. If you have signed up to use Bloglines, you can just click on that button anywhere on the Web and you’ll have the opportunity to subscribe to the content. It’s simple…really simple.
Now, are you ready to give it a test-drive? Let me give you two easy steps to get started.
1. Register for a Bloglines account.
2. Come back to my site and click the “subscribe to RSS” icon.
That’s it. Now you know why they call it “really simple syndication.” Here’s the best part, you can also subscribe to other websites using your same Bloglines account. Let me recommend these RSS feeds:
- Perry Noble, my boss
- Brad Lomenick, the executive director of Catalyst
- The Official Google Blog
- Clemson Tiger football news
Well, you get the picture. You can subscribe to just about anything you’d like to know about using Bloglines and RSS feeds. The best part? It’s all FREE! I just saved you time and money.
Yes, there are other tools that do the same thing; however, Bloglines is a great place to start. Let me know how it works.
For you RSS veterans, what’s your favorite feed aggregator? And, more importantly, what’s your favorite feed?
I am also a fan of Bloglines, but I have been using the Bloglines Beta since it was available. I particularly like the 3 pane view that is offered and will allow you to view a site in RSS or view the actual site within Bloglines. It helps with RSS feeds that only syndicate partial feeds. You can use the beta at http://beta.bloglines.com.
I use bloglines. Josh Cody, from ChurchMarketingSucks, recently recommended Google Reader. I wish bloglines was faster and easier than it is. Would love to hear about a better one out there!
and my favorite feed is http://www.catalystspace.com/catablog/
I checked out Bloglines and didn’t really like it too much. I haven’t seen the Beta version yet. I really use 2 feed readers and like them just about the same, but my favorite right now is Google Reader and right behind it is the RSS function in Outlook 2007. I have Outlook open most all the time anyway so it works to have it open and read from there. I will check out the Beta version of Bloglines though. My favorite feed is actually feeds. I love Perry’s blog, Gary Lamb, Chris Elrod, Tony’s (here), Church Marketing Sucks, you name anything like those guys or Craig and Bobby at Swerve and I’m interested.
I use NetNewsWire on my mac. It’s great because it syncs my feeds (including read and unread status) between my MacBook Pro at home and my Mac Pro at work. And now with iPhone 2.0 software, it syncs my feeds wirelessly with my iPhone so if I read something while I’m out, it gets marked as read automatically on my other machines. I’ve tried Google Reader and ultimately liked the software implementation of NetNewsWire best. I’ve also used NewsFire for the mac, and while it’s interface is superior to NetNewsWire, it doesn’t sync between devices which was a deal breaker for me.
I love Bloglines. I’ve tried a handful of other readers and none of them are as clean, simple, and easy to use as Bloglines. My coworkers swear by Google reader and I’m just not impressed… Bloglines has been good to me, and I’m glad someone else is echoing my sentiment.
I’m more of a Google Reader guy myself… My wife still swears by bloglines though, so I can’t fault you…
Not that you asked for my opinion, but I use Google Reader through Fluid.app using the iPhone user agent. If you’re running a Mac with Leopard, Fluid.app & Google Reader for iPhone is the best thing that has happened to blogging (slight exaggeration).
Google Reader – I’ve been extremely happy with it and haven’t tried other readers. I like that it’s one less thing to log into because I also use Gmail and Google Docs.
Seth Godin should be in everyone’s reader:
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/
Clemson football………….oh yea!! Can’t wait till August 30th!
I prefer FeedDemon. I’ve used it for awhile and have not had any issues.
vienna is my rss