Not Using an RSS Reader? You Ignorant Time-Waster!
In the course of making continued improvements to the Christian Web Trends blog I came across 2 startling statistics this week: CTW has 17,000 email subscribers but only 50 RSS subscribers. I was shocked!
So, I hope the title of this article gets your attention long enough for me to convince you that you could save lots of time and become better informed with the help of a simple RSS feed reader. If you are still fuzzy on what RSS is and how it can benefit you, I’ve included a great little video that will help to clear that up.
You would like to save time and be better informed wouldn’t you???
First of all, if you’re offended by the title of this article because you don’t use RSS and don’t like being called ignorant, chill for a second and hear me out. There’s nothing wrong with being ignorant. It doesn’t mean dumb; it just means uninformed at this point in time. All it takes to go from ignorant to informed is a little information.
It really bothers me that so many of our readers are not using an RSS feed reader and therefore are wasting precious time for no good reason. I want to help you save time and become better informed, so I’m going to get up on my soap box for just a moment to explain RSS and strongly encourage you to use an RSS reader.
Recently, I came across this excellent little video called “RSS in Plain English.” Take 3 short minutes to watch the video.
The bottom line is that if you read blogs or news sites, going to those sites periodically to look for new articles has two negative results.
1) You waste a lot of time going to each site checking for new articles
2) You miss articles when you get busy or forget to check the sites
An RSS feed reader (or aggregator) is a simple tool that periodically checks all the blogs and news sites you subscribe to, let’s you know when there are new articles, and puts them all in one easy-to-use tool where you can quickly skim headlines for articles you want to read. It’s like Tivo for blogs.
You can use a web-based RSS feed reader like those provided by Google and Yahoo! or you can install free software such as FeedReader, RSS Bandit, or SharpReader (my preference).
So, if you were fuzzy on the whole RSS thing before, does this help clear things up? Are you convinced an RSS reader is the way to go? Post a comment if you’ve “converted” to an RSS reader.
If something about RSS is still not clear or you think RSS is not for you, I’d like to hear about that too.
And by the way, all this information including the video are included on the What is RSS? Page, which is has a permanent link under the big orange RSS button in the right menu.
P.S. If you found this article interesting or helpful, please vote for it on Blogs4God and GospelShout so others will see it.
June 20th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
» Not Using an RSS Reader? You Ignorant Time-Waster!
I hope the title of this article gets your attention long enough for me to convince you that you could save lots of time and become better informed with the help of a simple RSS feed reader. If you are still fuzzy on what RSS is and how it can benefit …
June 20th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
Your right about the title of this article gets attention, my concern is that we are not called to have people take offense, yes, we may be ignorant sometimes, yes, also waste time…
I am not convinced that this was the way to get peoples attention, whatever is pure, lovely and of good report, the last wording, good report…
Anyway, that is my view, thank you.
June 20th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
Thanks for your comment Kristy. Call it tough love.
Anything you’d like to say about RSS? Do you use an RSS feed reader yet?
June 20th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
the one i use is http://netvibes.com which just won a webware top 100 award!!
June 20th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
There are a lot of readers out there. I use a less known reader, http://hypeit.com
June 20th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
Thanks for the email about RSS and yes the title is an attention getter. Personally, I knew nothing about it so I am appreciative of the information as anythings that frees up my time means I have more to dedicate to the Lord, at least thats how I hope I will spend it.
In any case thank you and may the Lord Jesus Christ bless you always.
Dave.
June 20th, 2007 at 10:38 pm
Okay, I clicked on the link to Myles’ favorite netvibes site and was promptly reminded of why I haven’t used RSS readers…
They ask for my log in name and password for my email address! Wassup with that?! I mean, isn’t that like the sacred secret we all must protect at all cost??? I mean, I don’t even KNOW these people! Why would I trust them with that?
Now, don’t get me wrong…I’m pretty techy…I have done all of my bill paying online for years, have several blogs of my own, have tutored others in the use of a computer and getting online, have photos all over the web and have even created a few little websites using wysiwyg software, not to mention buying and even selling over the internet…so I am NOT a member of my mother’s generation, scared that someone is going to steal their credit card numbers and private information by some stealthy means…
…so please tell me how this is a good thing to give others our log-in information. I’d really like to know! ; )
Thanks for sharing that video, btw. I can’t find a way to add an RSS button to my wordpress blog but I see that others have. I’m not sure if I want to add one but it would be nice to know if I can. I’ve kind of looked a few of their FAQ’s over and have yet to understand so maybe it’s a moot point.
Sigh…so much to learn…so little time!
June 20th, 2007 at 11:14 pm
most things on the net require a username/password authentication. http://netvibes.com have siad they will be using OpenID in the near future….which allows you to logon without using your email. My blog (http://biblebasics.wordpress.com) provider uses this!
June 21st, 2007 at 6:39 am
Susan, netvibes is more than just an RSS reader. It’s a personal homepage which you can set up to include your news feeds, weather, pictures, bookmarks, and more. You can also read your email through netvibes if you want to, but it’s optional.
When you sign up for an account it does ask you for your email address and a password, but you do not have to give them the actual password for your email account. Your email address becomes your netvibes username and whatever password you type in becomes your netvibes password.
June 21st, 2007 at 6:49 am
The number of RSS subscribers to CWT has more than doubled to 105 in the last 18 hours. Awesome!
I’d love to hear from some of you who started using an RSS feed reader for the first time after reading this article… describing what you were doing, what RSS reader you decided to use, and what you think of it,
June 21st, 2007 at 1:27 pm
You are right about the title. If I am crucified with Christ then I should be a dead man walking and should not take offense. What part of a dead man gets offended?
June 22nd, 2007 at 9:10 am
Thanks, Myles!
I didn’t see what you were talking about at your website (which, by the way, looks good so I have it open in another tab to go back and read later), but since I have a blog at wordpress, I am already signed in and didn’t see a place to sign in. That’s probably why I didn’t see it, I guess, since I am signed in already. Thanks for your tips and help, though! I really appreciate everything!
June 22nd, 2007 at 9:38 am
Thanks again, Paul! I am really glad you wrote this blog and are offering this help! I went back to netvibes but it sure seemed like they still wanted my email address and THAT password. They sure don’t make it clear.
The good news is that I took the time to go to my google.com page and set up a new tab there…which I don’t think I needed to do but I didn’t know that at the time…then I came back to this page and clicked on the subscription link and chose to subscribe using google and it worked! I went back to my page and found it in a new box on that page.
I have been wanting to learn how to do this so I’m really happy that I posted on this blog and gotten the feedback that I have received! Thank you!
June 22nd, 2007 at 9:51 am
I just wanted to tell Myles that I went back to his blog and saw “Blog Info” up in the “inside title bar” for lack of a better term. I hovered my mouse over that and a pull-down menu showed up and among the choices offered was a chance to subscribe to it, which I did. It didn’t give me a choice to subscribe using Google but opened up a new window using a beta program within wordpress called Blog Surfer.
The only way to access it is to go to my Dashboard and then click on the new Blog Surfer tab so it definitely isn’t as user friendly as a typical RSS feed… unless, of course, I find out that I get an emails or something that, notifying me of new blogs.
Anyway, I thought I’d give you an update on that…and let Phil know, too.
June 24th, 2007 at 7:23 am
Conversely, CHURCHES not PROVIDING an RSS-feed could (should?) be chastised for overlooking the opportunity to help its members easily stay informed re what’s new at their site. We’ve even provided a howto re an innovative ‘quick & dirty’ workaround for older websites to easily provide such a feed. Visit the Internet Tool Kit (wiki)… http://ubcafe.pbwiki.com/RSS-Feeds
June 25th, 2007 at 7:02 pm
Well Said
Not Using an RSS Reader? You Ignorant Time-Waster!
June 26th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
[…] 4) Email Makeover. Since most of you subscribe to Christian Web Trends by email (despite my attempts to convince you switch to an RSS reader ), I decided to give the email notification an HTML makeover. It will be interesting to see if more people read the articles because the email has color and graphics. […]