Back when Forward first launched, Wes wrote a good post explaining RSS readers (also known as feed aggregators, among other things). Some time has passed and I know we have more readers, many of whom aren’t using an aggregator, so I thought I’d do a follow-up post. I think aggregators are one of those things you don’t realize how much you REALLY needed it until after you’ve started using it. As Wes put it, “It is ridiculous how convenient RSS readers make blogging. I used to waste hours on end trying to read blogs seeing what was new. Now I don’t waste a second of my time finding new posts.”

Not only does it make blogging more convenient, as Wes notes, but it’s just an easy way to keep up with sources you like to read and makes staying informed a snap! And as Barry Keegan pointed out, making your aggregator your browser’s homepage is a great way to automatically keep yourself in the loop. Hmm … this is starting to sound like I’m selling something. (Ha!) So let me get right down to the meat of the post. I realize technology can be intimidating sometimes, so I figured I’d address some things to help folks on their way to using this tool.

Can you use one aggregator for both news and blogs? Of course.

Do you have to know or understand all this techy stuff to use this tool? Heck no.

Does it cost anything? Heck no. (Well, some do. But I use a free one.)

As a matter of fact, here’s all you need to get started (with Bloglines, at least):

1. An email address (you’ll be sent an email to validate it)
2. The URL of the Web site to which you’d like to subscribe

Yeah. That’s it. You have to register with Bloglines so it can keep up with and show you your feeds each time you login, but it’s a very simple process. It offers a quick-pick list to choose from popular subscriptions, but you can skip that and go right to subscribing to a site of your own choice … like … Forward.

To do that, click on the “My Feeds” tab at the top left. Then click “Add” at the upper left (in the left pane), which will give you the opportunity to enter the URL (or feed URL) for any Web site to which you’d like to subscribe. (For example, for Forward you could just enter www.forward-moving.com/blog.) Assuming that the URL you entered has RSS, Bloglines will bring up a list of feeds available from that URL. Just put a check mark in front of the one you want. As far as I know, it doesn’t matter much which one you choose.

Once you’ve selected one, just scroll down, click “Subscribe” and you’re DONE! Now, Bloglines will automatically pull any new posts into your account there. So you can subscribe to the feeds for ALL your favorite reads and just visit Bloglines to read them all — instead of having to visit all the individual sites.

Now, if you really want to get cRAZy … you can organize your feeds into folders and maybe put all your blog feeds in one folder and all your news feeds in another. I’ll leave that up to you, once you feel like exploring the service a bit. Enjoy!

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