RSS Basics - Information Trapping: Real-Time Research on the Web - page 34

Stand alone vs . Web - Ba sed r S S Feed readers?
Whether you use a standalone or Web-based RSS feed reader is up to you. if you use the same
computer all the time—a desktop you have at home or a laptop you carry with you everywhere—
a client-side RSS reader would work ine because you'd always have the computer with the
software on it. if you don't use the same computer all the time, and instead shuttle between
laptop and desktop, or home and ofice computers, then i recommend a Web-based RSS feed
reader. With this type of feed reader, as long as you can get on the Web, you can get to your
collection of RSS feeds.
Bloglines
Bloglines (bloglines.com) is my favorite Web-based RSS feed reader. But be
forewarned: it has an overwhelming number of options. You power users
out there will probably jump up and do a little dance. Non-power users may
ind yourselves just wanting to get on with reading your RSS feeds.
You have to register to use this site. Once you do, and then respond to the
conirmation e-mail, it's time to set up your feeds. Check out My Feeds in the
upper let part of the page ( Figure 2.19 ) and notice that there's already one feed
there—for Bloglines itself. You can click Add to add more feeds to the list.
You can also browse Bloglines' directory by clicking the Directory tab on
the main part of the page. he directory lets you search by keyword and
view a list of the most popular and newest feeds. here's also a list of all the
feeds available in alphabetical order, but because Bloglines has thousands
and thousands of feeds, this isn't particularly useful.
When you do a keyword search, notice you get two kinds of results—RSS
feeds for blogs themselves, and results for entries within blog feeds. So, for
example, if you search for Starbucks , you might ind that there are only
a dozen or so blogs with the word Starbucks in their description or title,
but thousands and thousands of entries which mention going to Starbucks,
their favorite Starbucks drink, etc.
Bloglines can handle hundreds and hundreds of RSS feeds for you. Once
you've set up the feeds, notice that it looks like a framed page. Your feed lists
are on the let. Click on a feed and its content shows up on the right.