I have heard about RSS, and clicked on an Icon months back, but did not really know what it was all about. The video provided by Common Craft is excellent. Its done in a low tech manner but really gets to the heart about RSS feeds. Considering my background in presentations, in my opinion, all the fancy special effects is just eye candy if the message is not understood by the audience. I thought the video was was very well thought out and easy to understand. After it was over, I was excited to start setting up my own RSS feeds.

My first venture into RSS feeds was disappointing. After the video, I was thinking who would be my first RSS feed? Why Photoshop user magazine of course! I type in the URL, I sign in with my user name and password, eagerly waiting for my little orange icon to light up. It never came. What is wrong with this? A high tech graphic magazine not on RSS? I was really disappointed.  I do sign up to get tutorials every day or week on my yahoo email account, but most of the time I just dont have to view them. If I could get it coming to me when I have the time aside to read/view them- what would be the way to go. I even typed why no RSS feeds on the site?, they are not offering it at this time. So here I was rare’n to go and I hit a speed bump. Off to find another site to see if all this RSS hype is really true.

I then meander over to Layers Magazine and wait a moment, soon my little icon is glowing orange. I was so excited!!! I click on it and followed the directions to subscribe. Now, I was on my way. I RSS from my church and am trying to think if other sites I can link. Then I wondered- where do the RSS’s go? I found my list on my internet explore nav bar under favorites, if you click on that icon, your feeds will appear.

This is so cool.!

I feel like this journey is only as good as the people who join you. Its like going to the gym, you are excited at first, then after a while you get stagnant and not want to program the elliptical trainer to a more difficult setting. But, if you join with a group, (and our library site provides wonderful examples with links it is much easier to dive first into the pool. ) I probably would not be diving into RSS’s without them. Thank you so much.

My biggest challenge is to remember to look under favorites and read my RSS feeds. I will check into my yahoo display to see if I can get it to automatically display on the screen, otherwise I might miss it. And now I need to search more sites to see if I can expand my orange icon’s territories.