What You Make of It – Technology Tutorial – Getting Organized Online with RSS & Feeds

Today’s What you Make of It column is a little different than my usual posts about "how to" and "DIY". If you already understand RSS and organizing you may want to skip down a little ways to read about our new Design & Style column. For those of you have no idea what RSS is, I’m hoping you will be delighted with today’s post.

Blogging and reading blogs can be an overwhelming feeling at times. There is so much content to read, catch up on and only so many hours in the day. If you are like me one blog leads to another blog which leads to another blog and time just flies. 

What is RSS?
Without getting too technical you can visit this link at Wikipedia for exact terminology and a more detailed look at RSS.

The RSS Reader is the most important part of RSS, it’s the platform in which you can organize all of your favorite blogs and even Etsy shops. So when they update, you have all of the new posts and updates all in one spot without having to blog hop and you can even tag them!

You will first need to have a "reader" account. My favorite is the Google Reader. If you have a Gmail account (which is free) then it’s easy to set up.There is also Bloglines, Yahoo & Netvibes just to name a few.  

Once you have a reader of some sort you’ll want to click on the little orange square button (shown in the image above). You’ll find these all over the web this is the "feed icon". Once you click you are taken to the steps provided in your feeder to "subscribe" to that blog or shop. After that it’s home free and you will start feeling less overwhelmed with keeping track of websites & blogs! Click this link to add Vintage Indie in your reader now! 

Etsy Tip: To add your favorite Etsy shops to your reader you’ll want to find the "RSS This Shop" button located on each shops front page under "see who hearts this shop".

(The Vintage Kitchen shop is shown in the photo).