What is a FeedReader ?

Today I am going to review in my opinion most useful and interesting tools that came up with the whole web 2.0 vibe. Anyone spending considerable amount of time on the web can greatly benefit from them. So, to cut to the chase, I will write about FeedReaders, still relatively new and widely unknown to mainstream internet users.

What is a Feedreader ?

Simply, the role of feedreader is to gather and display web feeds(data format used for serving users frequently updated infrormation) from various sites in one place.By using feedreader you can have updates from several websites delivered to you, without need to visit them. These updates can be anything from newly published articles, comments to answers to your questions(Yahoo Answers) or any other text information. Mostly people use them to get daily updates from blogs (like this one) and news for news aggregators like Google News.

My feedreader keeps me up to date on allmost 40 websites. It save me lots of time that I would otherwise spend on visiting each site individually. Tracking News and Articles is most obvious things readers are used for, however there is allmost no limit on the kind of information feedreaders can get for you. For instance, a currency exchange website can offer real time feeds on the current exchange rates. Similarly, a soccer website can offer feeds for match scores and etc. When you let feedreader track website,there is no need anymore to visit website to check for new items, you simply continue using feedreader on a regular basis and as soon as there are relevant updates, you get them.

How to use feedreaders?

Feedreader can be either a web based or a desktop application. Using feedreader is very simple all you need is to add websites you want to monitor. To add website or service to monitor you need to take following steps;

  • Clarify that the website syndicate any feeds. Websites that syndicate their content have usually one following or similar icons displayed on the pages.
  • Click on the icon and you will be taken to the feed page, you need to copy the address of this page to your reader and you are done. Ex; If you click on the feed icon on our website you will be taken to the feed page located under http://feeds.feedburner.com/Makeuseof. To get updates from our site you need to take this address and copy it to your reader or choose among ones offered right on the feed page. As you can see in the picture below;
popular web based feedreaders

Most of the web based feedreaders are free. Some of the popular readers are; My Yahoo, Newsgator, Pluck, My Aol, Rojo, Bloglines, Netvibes, Google Reader and Pageflakes.

As for myself I am using netvibes.com, which is also an AJAX home page. As you can see on netvibes.com, it does not only bring new articles and posts to your homepage but can also get emails, pictures, ebay items and much more stuff. If interested check out our netvibes profile here.

enjoy

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    Comments RSS   |  Trackback URI

    13 Comments » Leave One...

    2006-10-10 03:54:01

    [...] You can also subscribe goals to your RSS reader ( to learn more click  FeedReaders) [...]

     
    2006-10-24 06:45:14

    [...] RSS feeds for monitoring any user’s recently added books and book reviewes (on how to use RSS feeds, check out our article on feedreaders) [...]

     
    2006-10-25 20:02:55

    [...] Rocketboom is very different from anything you see on TV, it is very simple, informal, bidirectional letting you to leave comments and recommend stories. All clips are recorded using only consumer level video camera, a laptop, two lights and a map. Clips are distributed online, and freely available to anyone with internet connection. Site also provides RSS feeds can so you can get videos delivered to you via feedreader. Check out recent clips here, and complete archive here [...]

     
    2006-10-28 12:22:25

    [...] You are also provided with an option to get daily picks delivered to you either by email or thorugh RSS(copy this url: http://9.yahoo.com/rss) to your feedreader. [...]

     
    2006-11-07 22:34:44

    [...] RSS options for tracking updates from different users using feedreader [...]

     
    2006-11-22 10:56:00

    [...] Some additional links: FAQ section, widget workshop, RSS feeds for windows widgets / MAC widgets (use your feedreader to stay up-to-date on widgets). [...]

     
    2006-12-19 22:29:36

    [...] I am not an active clipper but I am definitely an active clipmarks user. I visit clipmarks whenever I need some inspiration for an article or simply want to read some really interesting stuff. You see whenever someone clips something, there is an option to make it either private or public, if it’s made public then every member can view, comment and even give it a POP(something like + or Thumbs Up). Clips that receive most POPs are featured on the clipmarks.com and can be accessed from ‘Top Clips’ link. Most of the stuff that makes to top list is quite interesting, check out top clips for the month, week or today. There is also an option to browse top clips or recently POPed clips by category (ex. humor, entertainment, technology, religion….. ). And by the way there are RSS feeds for everything, so whether you want top clips of the month or most recently POPed entertainment clips you can get them right to your feedreader(what’s feedreader?). [...]

     
    2007-01-14 16:45:30

    [...] I like getting top stories on my feedreader, though currently offered feeds in my opinion are not diverse enough and in some cases too broad, resulting in bunch of news which maybe interesting but you have neither intention nor time to read. Today I realized that using Digg’s search feature you can actually create your own feed and only get stories matching your specified criteria [...]

     
    2007-02-13 11:42:50

    [...] Get notified: either by email or through RSS feed [...]

     
    2007-02-28 17:06:56

    [...] 9. RSS and all these feedreader stuff rulez! Use it… [...]

     
    2007-05-01 19:04:24

    [...] (45) iPodulatorPRO (Win, Mac) - RSS reader(?), games, powerful notes management features [...]

     
    2007-06-20 15:36:16

    [...] Google Reader is an extremely fast, uncluttered, easy-to-use, and probably the best web-based FeedReader. It incorporates several desired features, i.e ‘feed tagging’ letting you tag and store desired items for future reference, ‘item starring’ to star important items on-the-go, and perfectly implemented ’sharing’ feature that lets you share items with friends not only via email but also through an RSS-enabled webpage. Whether you’re a feed-loaded blogger or an occasional reader who is unfond of StartPages and looking for KISS-style and yet sufficient feedreader than definitely give it a try. [...]

     
    Comment by justing
    2007-09-17 15:13:50

    I love using google reader but it starts to get hard to maintain as the feeds start to add up.

     
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