Updated Content is King!

Quality updated “Content” is king!One of the reasons the site http://5280fan.com/ was started, was to put the stories and information that Vicki and I wanted to read all in one spot. Hey, we are busy following three different teams… our time is important! :-)

Well, after some initial site design changes we are finally getting close! Hopefully you will enjoy the site too…

If you are one of the millions who often go to websites to read a story, be it sports or any other topic, you have likely seen an RSS “icon” … that little reddish orange one with “rss”.

I’ve used RSS “feeds” for a number of years and find them an amazing resource to zero in on the content that I wish to read instead of wading through site after site to see if anything new has been posted. However, I often find that when I discuss RSS, most people don’t understand it and as such don’t use it. What a shame…

RSS is often called “Really Simply Syndication”. It is actually “Rich Site Summary” and it’s nothing more than a way for publishers of information, stories, etc. to “push” new, updated content out to you. It’s not hard or difficult. All you need is a “Reader” of your choice and you are set to grab RSS “feeds”!

There are a large variety of RSS Readers available for different computer platforms. Some popular feed readers include Amphetadesk (Windows, Linux, Mac), FeedReader (Windows), and NewsGator (Windows – integrates with Outlook). There are also a number of web-based feed readers available from websites that you likely already visit on a daily basis such as My Yahoo, Bloglines, and Google Reader to name a few. Once you have your Feed Reader, it is a matter of finding sites that syndicate content and adding their RSS feed to the list of feeds your Feed Reader checks.

What do I use? Well for my specific needs I use a program called http://www.feedburner.com/. As you get more interested in what you can do with RSS feeds, you will likely want to “customize” the feeds you like. You may want to put them into your Blog or email them to yourself or others. To do this you will need a program like Feedburner. Yes you can buy lots of software… but frankly it is not necessary. Why spend the money? While this may sound complicated, it isn’t. It’s really pretty much point and click for most programs.

Many sites display a small icon with the acronyms RSS, XML, or RDF to let you know a feed is available. Don’t worry. XML and RDF (and others) are all just another name for basically the same thing… RSS content.

If you are like about 80% of computer users in the world and use Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 you already have a built in RSS reader. No need to go searching. However, like many topics and tools, Microsoft does not exactly go out of their way to tell you how to use this really useful item. Well here is all you do. (BTW, if you use “FireFox” you are probably already using RSS because they make using RSS really simple!

Now for you more computer educated folks, this is going to be pretty basic stuff. Sorry, but remember when YOU first discovered RSS and how excited you were when “the light came on” about how you can use this?

So lets get started. First, lets find you a website with some RSS feeds. Go to http://www.usatoday.com/. Assuming you have IE7, look at the toolbar area and you will see a small RSS icon that says “Feeds” next to it. It will be lit up orange since there are feeds available (or “greyed out” if no feeds are available).

Ok, here you go. You are about to “capture” your first RSS feed! Exciting isn’t it!!!

While on the http://www.usatoday.com/ site, click the orange RSS icon on your tool bar up top. Whoa! You are now looking at a bunch of stores that came right off the headline page of USAToday! There are millions of websites that offer their “content” exactly like this! They even break them out into only “Sports” or “News” or “Weather” and a bunch of other topics. Pick what you like.

Now look closely at the top of the page and you will see “Subscribe to this feed”. Notice it has a small gold star with a green plus sign over it. More on this shortly.

Now, click on the link that says “Subscribe to this feed”. See the box that pops up? This is the same type of box that you get when you are saving a website to your “Favorites”, only now you are saving an RSS feed to your RSS favorites. You can rename the feed or organize the feed into different groups if you wish. For now, just leave everything as it is and click “Subscribe”.

You are done! You now have “Successful” at the top of the page and you have a new little link that says “View stories”. Click the link and you are now looking at the headline news stores that USAToday puts out. Did you notice the window on the left that opened up? It has the name of the RSS link you saved. Each time you click on this story name, you will get the most updated headlines that USAToday has published. You get to your stories by clicking on that little gold star with the green plus sign we talked about above.

So now that you know what RSS is and a little bit about how to use it, what does this mean to http://5280fan.com/? Well every story or Blog and yes even the pictures you see on this site are delivered to the website in RSS format AND (since I’m such a nice guy) you can subscribe to these stories in your very own RSS reader if you want because I include links to help you. Using RSS means that while Vicki and I are at the game, the “content” of our website is always updated when the writers I feature publish new stuff. Cool huh?! Even this Blog you are reading right now is sent to my website via RSS feed.

Do you want to get the great Blog “The Nugg Doctor”, but just the most recent stories? Easy! Subscribe to his RSS feed! It’s right there at the bottom of his headlines under NBA Blogs.

How about getting “The Nugg Doctor” by email? No problem! Click the link that says get The Nugg Doctor by email and you will be sent his most recent headlines in your email on a daily basis. No “spam”. No crap. Just good ol’ Nuggets news. NOW you can start using that email address to your cell phone that almost no one uses!

So check back soon! I will be featuring some really cool stuff to help you follow the Nuggets, the Crush and the 14ers as well as read specific stories by great writers! Remember… “It’s all about the Game”.

“Vicki’s Husband”