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BloggersBlog.com: Blogging FAQ
How Do I Find Blogs?
This is a frequently asked question. There are millions of blogs so
it is not just a matter of finding blogs, but finding good ones that
provide information on the subject you are interested in.
Here are several ways that you can find blogs:
- Check your favorite websites to see if they already have a blog.
- Search one of the major search engines (Yahoo,
MSN, Google, Ask Jeeves) for
blog + the subject you are interested in.
- When you find a good blog on your topic of interest check the right or
left side of the blog to see if they have a list of links to similar
blogs (also known as a blogroll). For example, if you scroll down the left side of
BloggersBlog.com you will find
links to more blogs that cover blogging and the blogging industry.
- Check blog directories like Blogarama.com, BlogCatalog.com, BlogWise.com
and Postami.com.
- Check blog search engines like DayPop.com,
and Technorati.com. Technorati.com
also has tags which organize information on specific subject areas. Tags
can help you find a number of good blogs covering your subject of interest.
- Some of the news search engines are starting to incorporate blogs into
their database. If you search these news search engines
(Google News,
MSN News, Yahoo
News, Topix.net, Findory.com,
NewsRocket.com ) and you look at the source of some of the
news articles you could find some good blogs.
- Check the tech columns of your favorite magazines and newspapers --
they are likely to mention blogs now and then.
- Search RSS aggregators and directories like Bloglines.com, Feedster.com, NewsGator.com and Syndic8.com
for feeds related to your topic. Not all RSS Feeds are from blogs, but many are.
- Social bookmarking websites like del.icio.us
and Furl.net will usually have lots of blog links.
- Use the old, but tried and true, information network -- ask your friends if
they have read any good blogs lately.
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What is an RSS Feed?
RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication" and it is built using
XML (eXtensible Markup Language). If you
are interested in information from a blog or news provider and they have
an RSS Feed available you can subscribe to it with a News Reader and
keep track of any new articles or blog entries they provide. For example, if you
subscribe BloggersBlog.com's RSS feed to your news reader you can keep track of our new
blog posts. The news reader will let you know when a new blog entry has
been posted. The news reader does this by periodically checking our
RSS feed to see if it has been updated. We can also ping the news reader
to let them know that we have posted something new on our blog.
RSS Feeds are very useful because they make it easy for people to track
multiple blogs and news sources at one time. Many people
using news readers subscribe to dozens or even hundreds of different feeds.
To read RSS Feeds you need a News Reader (also known as News Aggregators, RSS Aggregators, Feed Readers,
RSS Feed Readers and RSS Readers). News readers can be used online with a
browser with services like Bloglines, My.Yahoo and Newsgator or they can be read with
independent desktop software like FeedDemon,
FeedReader and
Pluck. Mozilla's
Firefox browser also
lets you subscribe to newsfeeds while you are browsing the Web.
Once you have a registered with one of the online news readers or downloaded
a desktop news reader then you can quickly subscribe to RSS feeds. Most blogs and
websites will provide a link that you can click on to subscribe to their feed.
Often this link can be found near an orange XML button.
All of Writers Write, Inc.'s RSS Feeds can be found here.
Writers Write, Inc. is the parent company of BloggersBlog.com.
Other Explanations of RSS Feeds:
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