Journalism 2.0 - Knight Citizen News Network

Chapter 1: FTP, MB, RSS, oh My!
“Our philosophy going forward is, ‘Break it on the Web, expand on it in print,’”
said Times editor Jim O’Shea. “We have to change what we are doing online, and
also in print, to better engage readers and users who can choose every day among
myriad sources for their news and information.”
How does RSS work? When you subscribe to RSS feeds, you create a convenient,
one-stop information shop tailored to your needs and interests. Setting up a feed
is similar to bookmarking a Web site, but it’s much more efficient and powerful.
And it’s really easy to get going. Here’s how:
1. Select a reader.
2. Find a feed.
3. Add it to your reader.
Select a reader: There are essentially two types of RSS readers to choose from.
Web-based readers that you access by logging in to a specific Web page, or standalone
software programs that you download to your computer and then launch. To
understand the difference between Web-based readers and stand-alone versions,
think of having a Hotmail account that allows you to check your e-mail from any
computer (with Internet access) compared to using Outlook or Entourage, which
you can only use on your computer.
Web-based readers: Personalized home pages provided by Yahoo! and Google
(among others) use RSS feeds to build a Web page with links to the information
you choose. It’s easy to do without ever knowing how RSS actually works. Simply
go to my.yahoo.com or www.google.com/ig, sign up for an account and select the
information you’d like to receive automatically, then arrange the feeds on your
page the way you want
them to appear. (You
can move them around
by simply clicking and
dragging the boxes.)
Each time you return,
the links will be updated
automatically with
the latest information
from those Web sites.
A MyYahoo! start page
with RSS feeds selected
from Yahoo’s menu.
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Journalism 2.0: How to Survive and Thrive