RSS Aggregators

I am not sure if everyone is familiar with RSS aggregators. So I thought I would provide some information.

RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication (among other things) and it provides with a very easy way to keep on top of your information. Rather than hunting through a bunch of blogs and online newspapers, you can aggregate all your information in one location from many different sources using an RSS aggregator. My favorite aggregators are FeedDemon and its partner newsgator. Other popular newsreaders include My Yahoo! and Bloglines. I will provide some brief commentary on each one to get you started.

FeedDemon is a feature packed desktop application that sells for US$29.95. It is an outstanding bargain. To use FeedDemon, you simply go File > New Channel Group and provide a new channel group name. For example, you might wish to have a channel group for Business and Financial Weblogs. Thus the new name becomes BusFin Weblogs. Now place your cursor inside BusFin Weblogs and go File > New Channel. To add my weblog Specious Argument, you simply enter its URL. I usually use my browser, visit the weblog, copy (control c) the URL from the address bar, switch over to FeedDemon, and then File > New Channel. I just paste the URL into FeedDemon. Then I go on to the next weblog. Once you have added all your financial weblogs to this group, you simply need to open the group and all your information is presented to you in one location. FeedDemon offers many other features as well. If you are interested, go to the site and explore. In fact, I encourage you to take FeedDemon for a trial run. You can download the trial version from this location. I am sure you will be hooked on this software once you have tried it.

Newsgator and FeedDemon have partnered together. Soon the applications will share information back and forth seamlessly. Newsgator is an online aggregator. If you go to newsgator, you can add your weblogs easily. Just sign up for the free version. Then select the newsgator manager tab, and then select Add a Feed. Next select URL & Import and then just add the URL of the weblog. Again, I use my browser to find my weblogs, and then I simply copy the URL from the address bar and then paste it into the form. It is faster, easier, and less likely to cause an error. Click the newsgator online tab to view your different weblogs. You can also organize your various weblogs by organizing your folders. This service is free, so I encourage you to try it. I found the navigation a bit tricky at first, then once I understood it, I found it very easy.

Next is My Yahoo. Simply go to My Yahoo!, find + Add Content button. Then click the button, hit the link Add RSS by URL, and then input the URL. Similar to FeedDemon and newsgator, I would just use my browser to copy and paste.

Next is Bloglines. Similar to newsgator and My Yahoo!, it is free and an online. Just go to Bloglines and create a free account. Then go to My Feeds Tab and then Add Link. Add the URL and hit the subscribe button. Again, use your browser to copy and paste. You can organize your feeds into different folders.

I have given you some information about how to retrieve your information much more efficiently than visiting a bunch of weblogs. You can also use RSS aggregators to get news from online newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal and New York Times among others. I highly encourage you to try FeedDemon. Once you have tried it, I am sure you will thoroughly enjoy getting your information much easier and quicker than you did before. Also, FeedDemon has other features that make it easier to stay on top your information needs. Newsgator has some very interesting plans for integrating with FeedDemon plus offering its members premium feeds. You can use either the subscription model or the free version of newsgator. Yahoo! is convenient, especially for those who already use My Yahoo!. And Bloglines is a user friendly system as well to get RSS feeds.

I hope this information helps you.