[1] annie's blog [2]annie's blog [3]πŸ‘‹ Hello! [4]✍️ Guestbook [5]πŸ‘Š Blog [6]🫢 Micro ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ How to do the RSS This is a simple guide for people who are not super tech-oriented. I like the recent [7]You should be using an RSS reader article that’s being shared. And I think we need a simple little guide for people who might read that article and think, Yeah. Good idea. I should do that. And then they might think, Huh, how exactly do I do that, again? RSS isn’t complicated. But if you’re not at all familiar with it, it’s not easily apparent. So here’s a little guide to get started with RSS. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ The very short version 1. Sign up for an RSS reader. I use Feedbin. [8]Go sign up. You get a free month, then it’s $5/month. Don’t bitch about the price. Cancel something you don’t use, like that food tracking app or that one Substack you never read. 2. Open a site you like to read. Look for RSS or Feeds in the menu or find the RSS icon. Sometimes it’s in the footer. Sometimes it’s difficult to find. An image with caption: The RSS icon. Might not be orange! The RSS icon. Might not be orange! 3. Right click on the RSS icon or the RSS/Feed option, once you find it, and copy the link. 4. Go back to Feedbin, click the +Add button in the bottom left, paste in the link, and hit Enter. 5. Feedbin will pop up a little dialog with the feed title. Confirm you want to add the feed by clicking the blue Add button. Repeat steps 2 through 5 to add more sites and blogs and cool stuff to your RSS reader. Now for the longer version. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ What is RSS RSS is your own personal feed of cool stuff from the Internet made by cool people you want to hear from. It’s a little bit like what Facebook was when it started, although it came long before social media. We could call it the original social media. In fact, I think we will. From now on. I will, anyway. You do what you want. Anyhow, social media was useful and cool at first because you got to connect with people you knew in real life or found interesting and then their stuff would show up in your timeline, and you could see everybody’s stuff all in one handy feed. Social media has become such an ad-congested, algorithmed experience that it’s pretty much useless if you want to actually see the stuff made and shared by the people you actually care about. Which brings us back to RSS. RSS lets you build your own little Internet feed. You add the people you like and you get a continually automatically updated stream of things you’re interested in from people you want to hear from. No ads or interventions or intrusions or extraneous junk that doesn’t belong there. How to set up RSS First up, you need an RSS reader. There are so many. Free ones and paid ones, old ones and new ones. Of course nothing else will ever come close to the original* and the best, my one true love, Google Reader, which honestly wasn’t that special but it holds a special place in my heart. Miss you, baby. Anyway there are lots. But you don’t need lots. You need just one. Step 1: Sign up for an RSS reader. There are many options. They are all basically the same, honestly. Don’t overthink it. You can switch this up later if you want. Go read [9]this article and pick one of the options, then sign up for one. Are you mad that you might have to pay a small subscription fee? Don’t be. Be glad. Paying for something means you’re the consumer, not the product. On Facebook, etc., you’re the product being sold to advertisers, so you don’t have to pay. Also, get real. It’s like, $5 to $10 a month. You can do this. I believe in you. Step 2: Add feeds to your reader. There are two ways to do this. First: Search for the people/sites/blogs in your RSS reader of choice. Look for the Add/find/subscribe option somewhere in your reader. Most modern readers have some sort of functionality to sniff out the RSS feeds for you. Try it. See what you can find. Second: Open the sites and blogs you want to read and look for their RSS feeds. Some sites make it really easy to find and some don’t. Some sites have multiple feeds to choose from. Step 3: Get the app for your RSS reader of choice. Because let’s be real, you’re mostly going to read these on your phone. Which is fine. Step 4: Repeat step 2 anytime you discover a new site/blog/person you like and want to follow. That’s it. You create a customized feed of your own choosing, with the things you like and the people who are interesting to you, and you can read them at your leisure, and they won’t get buried in the timeline by the algorithm. They’ll be there when you want them. And you can remove any that get boring. You’re in control. By the way, here’s [10]my RSS feed. Okay, go do it! Get to RSSing! ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ *Don’t @ me with your timelines and argumentation about why it isn’t the real original, I don’t care. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Published October 17, 2024 [11] Subscribe via RSS [12] Back to all blog posts [13]PIKA References: [1] https://anniemueller.com/ [2] https://anniemueller.com/ [3] https://annie.omg.lol/ [4] https://anniemueller.com/guestbook [5] https://anniemueller.com/posts [6] https://annie.micro.blog/ [7] https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/16/keep-it-really-simple-stupid/#read-receipts-are-you-kidding-me-seriously-fuck-that-noise [8] https://feedbin.com/ [9] https://www.wired.com/story/best-rss-feed-readers/ [10] https://anniemueller.com/posts_feed [11] https://anniemueller.com/posts_feed [12] https://anniemueller.com/posts [13] https://pika.page/?utm_source=pika_blog&utm_medium=pika_footer_branding