RSS feeds - what's it all abaht? (mock cockney accent)

Hiya, I'm Larimar and I'm here as I opened my big gob and said "Drift, you know, you really should start a blog - you'd be MAD not to, you don't have to provide all the content yourself... get a few people contributing with you" hahahaha that'll teach me to be so helpful! *grin*

Yes, as well as looking gorgeous and knowing some of the coolest house music clubs in Second Life, I also know a bit about the web so will be bringing you handy tips as well as gossip and daft photo's from my SL wanderings.

For today's gripping contribution (don't tense your bums on your seats too much in anticipation), I am going to explain to you what the lovely RSS buttons are for - if you are someone who loves reading stuff but hates email - or if you are someone who has or is thinking of starting your own blog and want to find out why it's a good idea to stick a button on your site, then read on.

RSS for people who like to read a little bit to be kept up-to-date and who hate spam

Just underneath the Tribe pic at the top of this blog you will see two buttons that have this natty little orange symbol next to it - one that says Posts and one that says Comments. Whenever you see that orange symbol it means that you can get information from that site direct to your desktop without having to log into the website or check your email, via something called an RSS feed reader or aggregator. Click on it now and you will see a little list of some of the favourite readers available - if you don't have an RSS reader yet, click on one to download one for free and add Tribe!

Now you may be thinking... wtf is RSS? RSS is short for Really Simple Syndication (popular definition) or Rich Site Summary *yawn* - see it wasn't important really but if you're like me, you just wanna know! *lol*

The main benefit to you - our wonderful blog visitor - is that whenever we put a new post on here, your luffly new RSS feed reader will go ping on your desktop and and show you the first few lines of the post or news article. If you think "WOW I must read more!" you can either read it all there, or log into the site via a link. Quick, easy, no messing about, without the distraction of having to visit a website - PLUS you hear about things first AS THEY HAPPEN - no spam as you are NOT giving out your personal info, only subscribe to what you're interested in - no email to check and no virus fears. Phew! what are you waiting for - go get RSS'd up and add all your favourite sites - with Tribe at the top of course ;o) visit www.google.com/reader for one.

RSS for people who have their own site or blog and want to share the love (aka blah) more easily

OK, so you have your blog or website and want to keep in touch with your visitors easily without annoying the hell out of them?

Well as many of you may be aware, getting people to part with their email address can be hard work 'cos, let's face it, we all HATE spam. Also, visitors tend to flit about a lot and although some of the more savvy ones may remember to bookmark your site, they may then instantly forget about it and never return AAARRRGGHHH!!!! So what's another alternative you can offer to make your site more sticky? An RSS Feed!

Above, I've already explained the benefits of one for the end user, which is something you, as a content provider, shouldn't be ignoring... but PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE ensure that the quality of what you are publishing is high and by that I mean it should be helpful, informative and full of YOUR personality. Really, try writing like you talk and if you're dead boring, well, get someone else to write for you ahahhahahah. Share some of yourself and people will really start to get know, like and trust you and will LOOK OUT FOR and READ what you have to say and maybe even take action (which is what you want :P)

Adding RSS feeds to blogs is dead easy as the coding is usually provided for you and you just point and click - even Drift managed it here in a few minutes *lol* To add it to a website you will have to be a bit more technically minded or hopefully have a person who does it for you. You can read some geek info at http://www.rssboard.org/ and another interesting website is Robin Good's http://www.masternewmedia.org

Want to set up a blog? There are masses to choose from - some paid for services and some free good ones, that is a whole other article but in the meantime do a search or take a look at some of the popular ones like http://www.blogger.com, http://www.wordpress.com, http://www.typepad.com

Until next time... ta rah! xxx