This is for people who aren't familiar with news aggregators, a.k.a. feed readers, news readers or RSS readers. If you already use a reader/aggregator, or have some other way to get notified of my postings, just skip this.
I keep having conversations with people who say they read my blog, but in further discussion it becomes apparent they do so by checking my URL on some regular or not so regular basis. It's always flattering to find someone, besides my mother, who cares what I write, so if you really are interested, here are some specific alternatives for tracking new posts in this blog.
"Communications", i.e. this blog, is a website where I post occasional articles and comments. There are two principal ways to get notified when I've made a new posting, by email or via a web feed and a feed reader.
For email subscriptions, I use a service called Feedblitz. Once a day, Feedblitz will check my blog and, if I've posted new material, send you an email containing the new posting(s). To get started, look to the right. On the fourth line below my picture, you'll see a box for your email address and a button "Subscribe me!" If you enter an email address and click the button, you'll see a Feedblitz acknowledgment page, then a few minutes later you'll get a confirming email. You must click on the link in that email to verify you really want email notifications.
If you want to track several people's blogs and/or other web-based news services, there is special software that makes this easy, helping you organize sites and track new postings. Alternate names for this software include news aggregator, feed reader, news reader or RSS reader. Versions are available that run on your PC and that run on a website you access with your browser. About.com reviews the top feed readers here.
My personal choice is a web-based feed reader, Bloglines, because I use several different computers in a typical day. With Bloglines, I have a single view of my subscriptions regardless of which computer I'm using.
Comments