Keeping Up-to-Date

Today’s focus at Skillkick is on RSS feeds.

Firstly, watch this fantastic short 2-minute clip from commoncraft. I love their short films!

Skillkick often receive emails from people saying that they feel bombarded with information. This post focuses on an activity to help you explore tools available that can help you keep up to date with what is going on in your specialist areas of interest.

Firstly, make a list of how you find out about things. When I did this, I was quite surprised by the amount of information that comes my way. I noticed that my use of information overlapped for professional and personal purposes and that I keep up to speed with more than I realised! Hardly surprising, then, that sometimes those ezines don’t get read for a while. In today’s electronic world, we can become flooded with new information and it is how to cope in terms of the quantity and quality of information coming in.

What does your list include and what are the ways in which you gain new information?

My list included mailing lists I subscribe to; reading blogs and internet sites; emails; online newsfeeds; magazines; getting information from other people; newsletters and newspapers.

Tip: Whenever you use a new tool or sign up for something new, keep track of the site you register with and ensure you know how to unsubscribe.

I can’t live without RSS feeds which supply me with headlines; links and articles summaries from various websites. I can then decide whether I want to read further in more detail or just gain headline snippets. All my information comes to me in one place. There is a feed for every aspect of your life! Just look for the orange button if the site offers RSS.

If you haven’t already, set up RSS feeds. Firstly, you need to choose a feedreader. I use Bloglines. Another example is Newsgator

There are a number of ways of getting feeds into your feedreader depending on which one you use. Right-clicking on the orange button might give you the option to add the link directly to your feedreader or there may be shortcut options built into your feedreader. Bloglines has an easy subscription bookmarklet which appears in your bookmarks toolbar; whenever I come across a site I wish to receive updates from, I just click the button – easy!

You will also find that your feedreader will enable you to easily add feeds from their pre-selected content. As I use bloglines, I can use this as an example – once you have logged in, you can select popular content from a directory and choose ‘subscribe’ to add them to your feed list.

You can search for sites that offer RSS feeds at Syndic8

So to recap:-

Choose a feedreader

Add some pre-selected content

Set up a feed to the BBC or daily newspaper

Search for feeds at syndic8

Post a comment and let me know how you get on!