RSS feeds
With millions of websites out there, the Internet can be a confusing place. Older adults can be easily overwhelmed by the amount of information that is available on the web, so it is important to find ways to search for and save favorite websites.
Subscribing to RSS feeds might be an easy answer. RSS or Really Simple Syndication feeds allow you to “follow” your favorite blogs, news sites, and more simply with a click of a button. Many news sites, blogs and other online publishing websites use RSS feeds to share their latest articles and posts. It’s a simple way of having news and other information delivered directly to you without having to clutter up your email inbox. And you don’t have to visit a load of different websites every day either.
News sites, like
www.cnn.com,
www.foxnews.com,
www.msnbc.com, and others, all offer RSS feeds. It is easy, too, to follow someone’s blog with RSS feeds.
While there are a variety of RSS feed reader and news aggregators available for Windows and Mac operating systems, web-based feed readers are probably the most popular and easiest to use.
For example, if you regularly use Google or My Yahoo, you can subscribe to RSS feeds and have them display right on your iGoogle or My Yahoo home page. Or you can create a Google Reader page dedicated just to your RSS feeds.
Simply find the RSS icon — which looks like a small orange cube with an white dot and two curved lines above it (see image to the right) — on the news website or blog page, click it, and then select the web page where you would like it to display. If you regularly read a blog, simply click “Follow” or “Subscribe” if you can’t find the RSS logo and all new posts or articles will be included in your feed.
The Reader automatically checks for new articles and pulls all new content to display on your page when it becomes available. Depending on the website you have subscribed to, it might simply show a blog headline or a news headline and a brief description. Clicking on the headline can show you the full article right on your Reader home page, or you can click through to the actual website and read there.
It is a simple, clean and efficient way to keep track of the news sites and blogs you like to read every day. Subscribe and start reading today.