JG etc.

Feeds are really a benefit and should be used by everyone. Not just for geeks and news junkies, they also serve the great purpose of saving us all a lot of time. Much like email is faster than postal mail, XML (format feed syndication is based on) can do things that HTML(standard webpages) can’t. The X stands for ‘extensible’, think of it as the ability to bring content wherever you want, under your terms. The best feature is that it is all free and there is plenty of competition in this aggregation/syndication space so innovation and improvement is constant.

Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune breaks down integrating feeds into your life with 23 easy steps. He actually does a great job of not overlooking steps that you might forget in explaining to someone how to set up an aggregator and start subscribing too or importing feeds. This seems to be stupidly simple but it really does serve a purpose to a much larger community that are not using feed syndication because the industry as a whole has not done a great job defining it. More info on feed adoption, Yahoo’s RSS White Paper.

So now when my mum asks me what I do, besides sell drugs, I can point here to this link to get her started.

PostScript: Bloglines is a nice ubiquitos aggregator for this demo, web based and accesible from any mainstream machine or browser.(Best feature is auto discovery for feeds or what they call, “sub with bloglines”, don’t know why NewsGator doesn’t have one?) As soon as you are comfortable and on a Mac, export your subscriptions over to NetNewsWire to really take advantage of all the benefits of feed syndication.

Here is 24 and 25

How Can I Export My Subscriptions in Bloglines?
From the My Feeds page, click the Edit link at the top of the left panel. There will be a link to export your subscriptions in OPML format.

What’s OPML Format?
OPML format is an XML format. For more information on the OPML format, click here.