Making your news come to you
The WSJ reports [subscription required] that U.S. newspaper circulation fell 2.8% over the last six months. So where are those readers going? If they’re anything like me, they’ve abandoned print media in favor of the web, a behavior change facilitated in part by RSS feeds (that’s short for Really Simple Syndication) and services like Google’s Customized Homepage. RSS brings all of your news sources directly to you without you having to go out and search for them.
In addition to serving up news from conventional sources like the Wall Street Journal or New York Times, Google also retrieves feeds from my selected blogs (Fast Company, Engadget, etc). In fact, it was the ease of access to these blog updates that prompted us here at GuildQuality to replace our newsletters, tutorials, and press releases with a blog format. It’s easy for us to edit and (more importantly) easy for readers to access.So now that we have tweaked our information presentation methodology, I thought it helpful to share with you some other ways to access it. You clearly don’t need Google to access our blog, but a customized homepage (yahoo has one as well) will serve up the latest updates from whatever news sources you choose without you having to go out and find them.
If you are interested in a little more detail about RSS feeds, check out the BBC’s concise tutorial. But trust me, Google makes it idiot proof (even I could do it!). Just go to www.google.com/ig and it will walk you through setting up your own customized homepage.