Nov 09 2005
Subscribe FAQ
The subscribe buttons on the left sidebar allow you to use the news-feed feature at Ernharth Perspective.
There are two primary ways you can subscribe.
- Use one of the free news aggregator services. (Think of aggregators as a fancy name for a newspaper / news site with personalized content with you as chief editor. These are the newspapers of the future - we’ll discuss in a moment.)
- Simply enter you email address, and you’ll receive an email version of each new post delivered to your inbox. Initially you will be sent an email requiring a confirmation to prevent bogus requests. You can always unsubscribe later (each post explains how), and your email address is never used for anything other than sending you a post.
About Aggregators
Aggregators are the newspapers of the future. Aggregators allow the user to serve as the chief editor of their own online newspaper drawing content from blogs, journals and major media outlets around the world. With an aggregator, you visit one webpage and on that page you have a consolidated summary of all the content to which you have subscribed.
By subscribing, you are choosing that content provider as a sub-editor to your own newspaper. Aggregators usually allow you to create sub sections of content, much like a section of a newspaper. Content providers can have a specific editorial content focus and unique opinions, like Ernharth Perspective. Or, they can be very broad based with wide open unedited content - like Reuters or AP.
How to Set Up an Aggregator Account
Various aggregator services offer free accounts that take only a minute or two to set up with your own log-in information. To set up a new account with an aggregator service, simply click the button of the service of your choice, and the ensuing screen will tell you how to create an account.
How to use an Aggregator
Whenever you find content you like on a frequently updated news or journal type site (like Ernharth), you can elect subscribe to its news-feed by clicking the service’s subscribe button. Once subscribed, every time you view your personalized aggregator home page, your content is fresh and ready for you to read. Ordinarily a title and summary of each article appears beneath a heading of the site to which you have subscribed. Old content can be saved, clipped, or simply deleted. If you are a blogger, some services will integrate with your own blog.
Subscribing to a Site Feed
The buttons in the right sidebar of Ernharth Perspective allow for one-click subscriptions. Ordinarily, once you have an aggregator set up, your computer will remember that you have an account with it. Subscribing is as easy as clicking. The click will open up your aggregator page (or request that you log-in), and with another click to confirm that you wish to subscribe, the content will forever appear in your personal newspaper until you decide to unsubscribe. (If you do not have an account with that service, you will be instructed how to set one up.)
Some content sites do not offer the convenience of subscribe buttons. If that is the case, you will be required to login in to your service provider, and then manually input the site’s feed url.
However, many aggregator services offer users a “subscribe to this page” toolbar icon or bookmarks / favorites icon. When click, these will automatically grab a feed from the site you are viewing regardless if it has subscribe buttons or not. (For example, the Firefox browser allows users to drag and drop such an icon into their “bookmarks”.) NOTE: Not all websites offer news-feeds.
How do I know if the site offers a news-feed?
A site offering a feed will usually advertise it with a reference to “RSS” or “Atom”, the two primary feed formats.
What Aggregator Should I Use?
Popular Aggregators are (in no particular order):
* NewsGator
* Pluck
* Bloglines
* Rojo
* Google Reader
* My Yahoo
* My MSN
* MSN Alterts
* XML
Each aggregator has pros and cons in what it offers.
The big providers, like Yahoo, Google and MSN offer the added bonus of integrating your subscribed content into their broader personalized page services. In such a case, on one page you might have your new emails, favorite sports teams scores, news content, blog content, movie times and your personal investment portfolio summary. However, these services limit your ability to organize your content by subject matter.
The smaller providers (other than those named above) are geared towards customized experiences focusing purely on organizing your subscriptions in a usable format. Some are equipped to allow you to create your own blog and easily reference the material to which you have subscribed for your own posts.
Comment Feeds
Most blogs allow for visitors to post comments about the blog author’s content. Comment feeds allow you to subscribe to a specific post and its subsequent comments in order to follow and engage the conversation taking place.
