Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Thing 9: Finding Feeds

Now that you have a newsreader (your Bloglines account), you can begin adding other newsfeeds that interest you. There are several ways you can locate newsfeeds:
  • When visiting your favorite websites -- look for news feed icons that indicate the website provides it. Often a feed icon will be displayed somewhere in the navigation bar of the site. (Here's an image that contains a sampling of several feed icons).
  • Use Blogline's Search tool - Bloglines recently expanded search tool lets you search for news feeds in addition to posts, citations and the web. Use the Search for Feeds option to locate RSS feeds you might be interested in.
  • Other Search tools that can help you find feeds:
  1. Feedster - One of the largest collections of RSS feeds, Feedster lets you search for feeds in three categories: news, blogs & podcasts.
  2. Topix.net - This search tool allows you to locate recent newsfeed items based upon keyword or phrase searching. The tool focuses specifically on news and media outlet RSS feeds for information, not weblogs.
  3. Syndic8.com - Syndic8 is an open directory of RSS feeds that contains thousands of RSS feeds that users have submitted.
  4. Technorati - Technorati is a popular blog finding tool that lets you search for blogs. Since RSS feeds are inherent to all blogging tools, Technorati Blog Search can help you find RSS feeds for topic specific blogs you may be interested in. Additonal Resource: Technorati Tutorial on finding and adding your blog.

Discovery Excercise:

  1. Explore some of the search tools noted above that can help you locate some news feeds.
  2. Create a blog post about your experience. Don't know what to blog about? Here some questions to think about ...

Which method of finding feeds did you find easiest to use? Which Search tool was the easiest for you? Which was more confusing? What kind of useful feeds did you find in your travels? Or what kind of unusual ones did you find? What other tools or ways did you find to locate newsfeeds?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can I just say that I think we're moving too quickly? I've been having trouble keeping up with all the steps, and I know that if I'm having problems, a lot of other people are having issues as well.

Anonymous said...

I gave up myself at THING 5 or so. It may be that all my colleages speak only softly about RSS, or they may, by courtesy, speak only when I am absent. However it is, this and further THINGS seem necessary skills for anyone who intends to start an online newsletter. If they hope to exceed current Loudoun County newsletters, either in scope or currency, good luck to them. If they are of interest to Librarians, for librianship, for instance,I have nothing to offer.

Should anyone fail to win the MP3 prize, you can buy one at http://www.amazon.com/RCA-M-100256-Flash-Memory-Player/dp/B000BVOXR4.
For myself, I'm reminded of the Doonesbury cartoon, late 1970's, in which the Carter administration held a HUMAN RIGHTS COMPETITION. The Iranian team (pre-Hostages, pre-Ayatollah so pure Savak, ) begged off attending the final dinner, pleading earlier committments. They did say "Of course, we'd feel just terrible if we won anything.."
The Carter functionary replied "As would we all.."
I'm afraid I have as much chance of winning as the representatives of the Shahinshah...mh
Ps-- his wife was the "Shanana," or am I making that up?

Anonymous said...

I don't know about the wife, but isn't Savak the name of Mr. Spock's father?

Anonymous said...

I think Spock's father was Sarak.

Anonymous said...

Ah, you're right. But Kirstie Alley's character on Star Trek II is Saavik.