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RSS: Your Easy Button for the Internet
by Tammy Metzger,
J.D., M.A. and Carin Tabag
Imagine having an entire research team that works
around the clock, scouring the internet to compile and organize a
personalized newspaper -- just for you -- every day. Relevant
information is immediately organized into a familiar, easily
searchable format and there are no ads. Does that sound too
good to be true? “Wait, there’s more!” It is quick and
easy to set up and it’s free. Welcome to the world of RSS
(Really Simple Syndication). RSS works and looks like your email inbox, so
there is a short learning curve. You control exactly what is
sent to you, so you never receive spam and unsubscribing is simple.
You can choose from thousands of useful, interesting feeds that will
help you with your law practice, keeping you current and saving you
time. It will only take you 10 minutes to get started. I
have included an extensive list of recommended legal feeds,
organized by practice area, to make this as easy as possible for
you. First, let me tell you a little more about RSS, why Bill
Gates says email and web sites are the old way of communicating and
that RSS is an invaluable tool for the new, far superior, way of
communicating, with blogs and newscasts. RSS Looks and Works Like Email RSS is a web format that sends content directly
to you -- as soon as it is created.
It is very similar to e-mail.
When you are sent an e-mail, it arrives in your inbox,
waiting for you to read it.
With RSS, website creators put their content in the RSS
format (called a “feed,” “web feed” or “channel”) and it is
automatically sent out directly to anyone who subscribes to it.
Your RSS reader (also called an “aggregator” or “feed
reader”) is your inbox for RSS information and it picks up
information for you 24 hours a day, storing it for you to read when
you need it. Google
Reader is the easiest reader to set up and use.
RSS Saves You Time RSS is vastly more efficient than browsing the
internet manually. How much time have you wasted searching for
obscure articles, checking for nonexistent updates, dodging popup
ads and trying to locate an article you read a month or two ago
online? That history button on your browser is not very
helpful when you visit hundreds of sites a month. With RSS,
you can quickly find those articles (and unread feeds) by searching
through your RSS library with specific keywords. This does not
take up space on your hard drive because Google’s servers store this
information online, which means you can access it from anywhere,
including your cell phone. If you want to store your
information on your own hard drive, download
Google Gears so you can use the reader offline.
Readers make organizing your feeds easy.
You can create subject folders and flag (or star) key feeds,
just as you do with email.
Deleting feeds is also painless.
The reader’s “subscription trends” table will display the
least used feeds and all you have to do is click on the trash can
icon to delete that feed.
They will also recommend new feeds that may interest you,
based on your viewing habits, so you do not have to search for more
yourself. You can also
use your reader to publicly share particularly useful articles with
your invited Google “friends,” without having to email everyone.
Your Own Personalized, Constantly Updated Library I subscribe to over 60 feeds, so I receive
hundreds of articles, podcasts (audio) and video clips a day,
automatically, without searching the web and manually checking for
updates. I know of people who scan through thousands of
headlines a day with “List View,” reading only those articles that
interest them. If this sounds like an email nightmare, it’s
not. You don’t waste your time with spam and you do not have
to reply to any messages. In fact, you don’t have to read it
at all! I do not actually read the majority of my feeds
because I only need daily updates from a few of the sites. I
primarily use my reader as a library, where I store legal, technical
and news feeds into folders that I can search later. Reader
searches return relevant information faster than an internet search
because I’ve already narrowed the scope down to my 60 source feeds.
Google Reader’s search function is one of its best features. (Note:
most websites do not yet offer RSS, so a reader search would make a
good starting point, quickly returning relevant information, but is
not comprehensive. Furthermore, you would only search the text
in the feed, not necessarily the entire article). Let’s
get started setting up the easiest reader, Google Reader.
Setting up Google Reader (this takes 2-5 minutes)
Subscribing with the RSS Icon This is the fun part of RSS: subscribing to feeds
from your favorite websites. There are many ways to subscribe
to a feed, but the easiest way is to click on the RSS icon
To practice this way of subscribing we’ll use a
general legal news site,
http://www.cnn.com/LAW . I’ve set this link to open in a
new window when you click on it. (You can also right click on
a link “Open in New Window.”) You can toggle between the CNN
window, this one and your reader by simultaneously pressing the
“Alt” and “Tab” keys on your keyboard. In the middle of the CNN page you’ll see a box
entitled “All About… “ with a list of topics and red RSS icons (
Scan through the list of articles to make sure
you want to subscribe to this feed. If you decide to try it
out, your reader will pick them up for you once you subscribe.
At the top of the screen you’ll see the words "Subscribe to this
feed using" followed by a drop down box. If Google isn’t
already selected using the drop down box, select “Google.”
Click the “Subscribe Now” button and click the blue button “Add to
Google Reader.” You’ve just subscribed to your first feed and
it will immediately appear in your reader. Subscribing Manually to Google Reader If you click on the
Go back to Google Reader and on the left sidebar
find the
Unsubscribing If you do not want these feeds, click the link
entitled “Manage subscriptions >>” underneath your list of
subscriptions at the bottom of the left sidebar. Locate the
subscription you want to delete and click the trash can to its
right. Click “Ok.” Then click on “<< Back to Google
Reader” in the orange menu bar to return to your home page. For more help with subscribing see the
Finding RSS Feeds and
Troubleshooting sections at the end
of this article. JuriSense, LLC Seal Beach, CA (800) 891-6592 info@jurisense.com Home | Research | Expert Testimony | Jury Selection | Graphics | CLE | Tammy Metzger | Contact | Papers | Blog |
).
Find a topic that interests you and click on the associated
Add
subscription link and click on it. In the blank box,
right click and select paste (which should paste the link location
you copied) and click “Add.” Voila! You’ve added another
feed.