I love RSS. I keep Google Reader open permanently in Firefox. I have even spent time and energy developing web apps that use and create RSS feeds. RSS is a big part of my life and I’m trying to spread the word to the rest of the world. Since today is RSS Awareness Day I wanted to tell you how I teach people about RSS:
- Show them the Common Craft video.
- Show them Firefox’s Live Bookmarks. Explain to them how they could go to each post on a site and manually fill a folder with those links or they could just subscribe to the RSS feed and have it automatically happen. They’ll always choose the latter. Bookmarks and folders are much more concrete than aggregators; it’s easier to understand.
- Once they understand what RSS is and how it can help them THEN show them an aggregator like Google Reader or even keep it simpler and show them iGoogle. Not before; teach them the basics first.
Now go teach!
Tags: rss
I use FriendFeed, MyBlogLog, and Google Reader, and RSS technology is clearly evident in all three of them.