Working with Newsfeeds

Almost all blogs and a growing number of other websites automatically generate newsfeeds. Often this is in a format called RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and sometimes in other formats like ATOM. We can use these feeds to clear our e-mail Inboxes, keep track of whats new in our areas of interest in one place and to get some content on our websites to update automatically.

My colleague Ingrid Thomson from the Humanities Information Division in the UCT Library has kindly agreed to share a presentation which she prepared about making effective use of newsfeeds. Educause has a good , quick resource on "7 Things You Should Know About RSS" and you may want to check out a really nice short video by Lee Lefeaver on "RSS in Plain English".

Ingrid likes to use Bloglines as her online feed reader / news aggregator but I prefer the newer Google Reader which does very similar things. If you mostly work with one computer and want a desktop based news reader then I'd recommend Blogbridge or RSSOwl.