Make blog reading easier with an RSS feed!

  • February 23, 2012
  • Steve Wisinski, CPA, MAFF

To the right of this post is a small orange button inviting you to follow this blog on your RSS reader.  What does that mean, and how can you take advantage of RSS feeds to make following your favorite blogs easier?

When you see content on the web that offers an orange RSS feed button, that means you can subscribe to the site using your RSS feed reader, also called an “aggregator”.  These readers can be web-based, desktop-based, or mobile-device-based and are offered by Yahoo!, Google, and many others.

To establish your own RSS feed reader, sign up for one of the free reader sites (MyYahoo! offers a nice user interface).  Once you have set up your page, you can begin adding feeds to your reader by simply clicking on any orange RSS feed buttons you encounter out on the internet (try View From the Rock’s first!) Clicking the orange button or feed link should initiate the subscription process automatically in your feed reader. It will probably take you to your reader and ask if you want to enter this feed into your reader.  You select “Yes” and you are done!

The RSS reader then checks your subscribed feeds regularly for new posts, downloads any updates that it finds, and provides you with a way to monitor and read the feeds.  RSS allows you to avoid manually inspecting all of the websites you are interested in, and instead subscribe to websites such that all new content is pushed onto your browser when it becomes available.  See all the new content on your favorite sites in one place!

For a video tutorial on how to set up an RSS feed reader, click here.  And remember to subscribe to View From the Rock on your new RSS feed reader!