Are you bogged down in blogs? Blogs can be terrific sources for finding information and web sites on current topics; even the American Bar Association recognizes this, with a great directory of “blawgs” at http://www.abajournal.com/blawgs/ . (More about blawgs later.)
So, how can you keep up with the blogs you read? The solution is an RSS feed (RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, or Rich Site Summary, or… just call it RSS!) An RSS feed lets you put together all of the blogs you regularly read in a way that shows you any updates whenever they happen. This way, you don’t have to go to each individual blog; you get the latest from them, but in one central location that puts them all together.
One RSS aggregator, very easy to use, is Bloglines (www.bloglines.com). You can set up a free Bloglines account that will list the blogs you regularly read, and tell you how many unread posts are in each one. You can organize the blogs into folders, convenient if you read blogs on many different subjects! Updates go into your list automatically, as soon as they are posted to each of the specific blogs. ‘Subscribing’ to blog feeds is easy – look for the Bloglines icon on a blog’s page, or type that blog’s address in to your Bloglines account.
Bloglines is just one of many RSS aggregators; for links to others, and more information about RSS, look at http://www.whatisrss.com/ .
SGW