Choosing Your RSS Reader

If you want to be able to read RSS feeds then you are going to need an RSS reader. The types of RSS reader that are available to you come in two flavours. There is the desktop RSS reader and there are the online or web RSS readers.

Choosing your RSS readers need not be a difficult task, to be quite honest most RSS reader software performs much the same task. It downloads the RSS file and parses it into a readable format for you. Rather than trying to ram this or that product down your throat I am going to tell you what to look for in an RSS reader and share my personal preference.

Now I think the first and most important feature you will look for in your reader is price. Lets face it most of the software out there today is free so a fee based solution had better be outstanding. One free solution I did try but did not like, just my preference is Amphtadesk. This run from your desktop but displays the feeds as a webpage. This offering is open source and runs cross platform.

Another feature you need to look for is ease of use. You don't want to spend hours trying to figure out how subscribe to a feed. Again this is going to be your own preference as everyone has their own abilities. I would suggest that if you can't subscribe to a feed after a few minutes then you are probably using the wrong software for you.

A feature you will need in your RSS reader is the ability to import and export your OPML file. This is a file that holds all of your RSS feed subscription addresses, just like a list of email addresses. You will probably try several RSS readers over time before you settle on one you like. Without OPML you will have to manually subscribe to all of your feeds if you change your RSS reader.

Speed is of the essence. The more feeds you subscribe to the longer it will take to download them. I have used one desktop based RSS reader that took fifteen minutes at each update to download and parse the feeds. If your RSS reader turns out to be slow, dump it, there are plenty more out there.

I went through this process a while back and went through dozens of RSS readers. I finally settled on Bloglines, a web based RSS reader. There are other web based RSS readers out there, here is a list of RSS readers that I know of. I chose Bloglines as it was fast and easy to use and continues to work well for me.

You can find out more about RSS at Newsniche and how it can help you.

More Resources

Unable to open RSS Feed $XMLfilename with error HTTP ERROR: 404, exiting

More Blogging/RSS Information:

Related Articles

Increase Traffic to Your Blog from Search Engines - The Top 5 Tips
Your favorite thing about having a blog may soon be this - they naturally attract search engine traffic.Blogs already have optimized site architecture.
Why Journal Writing On The Web? Blogs Are Journals Giving Anyone An Identity, And An Awesome Forum
Journal writing used to be a private, personal experience done late at night, scribbling hardly legible thoughts and daily occurrences down on paper amidst the haze of a barely lit room. When read over on a later date one could find connections and coincidences that sometimes brought deeper insights into the meaning of life.
Marketing with Blogs and RSS Feeds
Perhaps you still don't realize or fully understand the power of RSS Feeds as a marketing tool.After all, email works fine, doesn't it?Unfortunately, the truth is:1.
Advertising in RSS Feeds: Are we risking disaster?
Advertising in RSS feeds is something that Google is considering offering to its Adwords and Adsense customers. RSS stands for Really Simply Syndication and is a really easy way for a webmaster to share their news and information stories to the world wide web.
Blog Problems
What in the world is up with the world of blogs? Blogs are meant to be this great new technology where people can share their ideas and interests with others around the globe. As far as I'm concerned the state of blogs is one of chaos, confusion, and anti-interactivity.
RSS Feeds, What They Are and How to Use Them
What does RSS stand for?RSS "Really Simple Syndication" was created in the 1999 to allow information to be published and subscribed to. RSS basically takes bits of up-to-date information from websites and provides it in concise simple text based format.
5 Reasons Why Your Site Needs to Publish a News Feed
It seems like everyone is talking about RSS Feeds. They've been around for years but the buzz is up about them as the technology continues to go mainstream.
Blogging For Business Bible
The items covered here are:1) Don't Wait before Blogging.2) Using Blogs to get your site found quickly.
Will The Real Spammer Please Stand Up!
If you have been using opt-in email marketing for sometime, I'msure you might have got accused of spam at some point, evenafter doing everything right.Yes, I'm talking about people who actually agreed to receiveyour email, blaming you for sending unsolicited mail.
RSS Latest News - Blogging or Blagging?
The RSS latest news suggests that RSS can stand for 'Really Simple Syndication', 'Rich Site Summary' or probably other interpretations of the acronym. An RSS tool is one that can deliver the technology where it is required.
Is RSS Here to Stay or Gone Tomorrow?
RSS is totally hot. We have seen it everywhere, from John-Doe blogsites to major news websites.
RSS for Bloggers
While syndication has many applications, we will deal specifically with its use for blog content and some technical information will be included at the end of this article.If you have any interest in blogs or weblogs as a publishing format, then you have undoubtedly come across the term R.
5 Secret Benefits That Bloggers Love And Enjoy
1: Building Trust RelationshipsBlogging allows bloggers to share their expertise and knowledge with a very large audience. Building a loyal audience is something that every small business owner would love to accomplish and bloggers are able to do this by simply sharing their thoughts using their business blogs.
How to Make Money With Your Blog?
Make money blogging is fun: you enjoy blogging and getting money from blogging. As long as "making money with your blog" is concerned, it doesn't matter matter actually whether you enjoy or not.
Do You Know The 3 Key Ways to Blog to Promote Your Online Home Based Business?
Most People who Blog and Ping only use 1 Method to promote there online Home Based Business. Their are actually 3 Keys ways a Blog can help you promote your Online Home based Business for little or no cost to you.
6 Ways That Blogging Can Save You Money
Even though I've had several personal blogs for years, I've only been officially business blogging since 2003. So in going back over expenses for the last quarter, you can imagine my shock when I realized that my overall business costs were down about 19%.
The Art of Business Blog Writing
"It is precisely minds of the first order that will never be specialists. For their very nature is to make the whole of existence their problem; and this is a subject upon which they will every one of them in some form provide mankind with a new revelation.
Steps To Creating and Promoting RSS Feeds
RSS, or Really Simple Syndication as it is commonly known, is a technology that gives webmasters the ability to easily distribute and publish syndicated content on the Internet. It seems like all Internet businesses now have RSS feeds available; at least your competitors do.
Top 9 Reasons Companies Should Blog
Below are the top 9 reasons why companies should blog.1.
Why It Took Me So Long To Blog
When I saw my first blog, I wasn't impressed.The first blogs I ever read were embarrassing tales of teenage angst better left private, political diatribes from both the rabid right and the rabid left, and jargon-filled tech rags that made my eyes glaze overAnd yet everyone was talking about blogs and that I would soon be left behind if I didn't have one.