Long-time reader and Top Commenter, Hellohahanarf, asked the following questions the other day, “what does subscribing to your site do? will it alert me when you post a new piece? will it make me a part of the cool kids so i don’t have to eat my baloney sammich alone (wait, what the hell was it you said you ate by yourself?!?!)”
You’ve probably noticed a message that pops up the first 5 or so times you visit my site inviting you to Subscribe to my site. You’ve probably also noticed a spot in the sidebar where you can “Subscribe via Email.” And again, in the footer of my page, my mascot once again asks you to sign up.
“Great, yeah, we see, it, what the hell does it MEAN?” you ask…
It’s pretty simple really. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. To put it in basic terms, it’s a way to take all the content from my site and publish it somewhere else.
“Ok, but what’s good about that?” Man you have a lot of questions!
Do you read several websites daily? How do you read them? You have a bookmark page that you click on and wait for the page to load? You keep a mental list of the sites and type them in the address bar? That’s not so hard to do if you only follow one or two sites every day. But what if you want to read 10?
Do you ever type in the site, waiting to see a new post from your favorite blogger (me, right?) only to discover that he hasn’t written anything today? Bummer, huh?
Well, there’s a much easier way to keep up with all your favorite sites: use a feed reader.
There are many different feed readers out there, some are available as software that you run on your computer, others are web-based (much more convenient in my opinion). I use one of the most popular, Google Reader.
I read about 100 different sites everyday. It’s all made so much easier by taking advantage of RSS. I don’t spend all day checking to see if there are new posts. If the post shows up on Google Reader, I read it. No post = no appearance in my reader. When I read something that I want to comment on, I simply click on the link in the feed and it takes me right to the correct spot. No fuss.
If you don’t want to use a reader, most sites offer email subscriptions. It’s exactly what it sounds like. Once a day you’ll get an email from me that contains all of the posts I’ve written that day. A little bit of JesterTunes gracing your inbox.
So yeah, subscribe and you won’t be stuck eating peanut butter sandwiches by yourself.
I use the rss feed on the Google sidebar – absolutely love it.
Robguy – I don’t really care for that one because it doesn’t let me file the feeds the way I want. There are so many tools out there, I’m sure everyone can find the system that works best for them!
Dude. Even I knew that. Seriously.
BTW – as of Friday, you’ve been tagged.
Miss Britt – Careful there… I think Hellohahanarf could take you… of course I’d pay a lot of money to film that altercation… $$$ Hello new site: girlfight.com!
Tagged? Huh? What did I miss?
damn. girlfight.com is already taken. And I didn’t get an affiliate link to send anyone there. *sigh* I always have great ideas… they always seem to be way too late.
Hm. That Rss thing sounds like something I should set up. I’ll do it later. Sadly, I don’t think there’s computer in the world that could get jestertunes in MY inbox…
thank you for the definition. I had been wondering what that was.
ginamonster – I’m wondering exactly what you mean by that.
Another good thing about google reader is if the blogger posts and then changes their mind, too late, I already have it on my reader page. You can’t hide from me.
Killer – That’s true. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading some posts in the past that were clearly not meant to be published.
me thinks i need to get myself set up with the subscription thingy. there are only about 15 sites that i check, but it would be nice to have it all in one place. thanks for the explaination, even if it obviously bored miss britt.
hey, find any gold??
i couldn’t get mist and one other site to work on my new google reader thingy. (yes, that is the technical term for it. bite me.) but so far, so good. thanks for the hand holding. i could have called al gore since he invented the internets, but he’s busy with the whole “my kid is in rehab and it is private” stuff.
xoxo
Hello – You are so welcome. We found some flakes. You should check out Jerry’s site for his take on the trip. Oh, and I don’t know what’s up with Mist’s site… her feed doesn’t automatically pop up, but you can set it up manually, the feed address to use is: http://mustgethobby.blogspot.com/atom.xml If you let me know what the other site you’re having trouble with, I can figure it out for you. At least Al Gore III was in a Prius.
dawn’s webmiztris is the only other one that gave me trouble. (miracle for me seeing as how i am SO not technically inclined) i appreciate your assistance.
will check out jerry’s site…thanks
Hello – Dawn’s feed is at: http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/webmiztris
you are my hero. thanks again.
I wasn’t bored. I simply could not pass up an opportunity to show off my superior knowledge.
They come along so rarely these days.
Miss Britt – Definitely pounce on those every chance you get!
Jester, every so often, I make a joke, and it turns out I’m the only one who thinks it’s funny.
Gina – I do that all the time. I call it my blog.
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