Thing 4: Subscribing to other blogs (plus an update to Thing 3 instructions!)

Thing 3 update!

A couple of people have mentioned to me that they had problems with Thing 3 - specifically that when they went to http://feedburner.google.com, their blog didn't automatically appear there to click on. Well, fear not, it only takes a second to add it - so for anyone for whom it didn't appear, follow these steps; for those of you for whom it worked fine, skip to the Activity below...

Go to http://feedburner.google.com again - you'll see a box below the line Burn a feed this instant. Just copy and paste the URL of your new blog into this box, then press Next >>. You'll probably then get taken to an Identify my feed source screen - choose the RSS option rather than the Atom option. Click Next >> again. On the screen which now appears you'll then be able to edit the title and URL of your feed. You can leave them exactly as they appear by default, or edit them if you want to. Click Next >> again, then on the next screen click Skip directly to feed management. That's it - now whenever you go to http://feedburner.google.com your feed will appear to be clicked on like it's supposed to!

Phew.

Now we've made it easy for other people to subscribe to our blogs, in Thing 3, we need to subscribe to some ourselves.

Activity: subscribe to some blogs 

This activity should take around 5 - 10 minutes.

We're going to use a feed-reader called The Old Reader - it originally created to look and feel like Google Reader, which is shortly to be turned off by Google.

(We've chosen Old Reader because it integrates easily with an existing Google account, meaning you don't have to go through any kind of sign-up procedure - but if you're feeling adventurous and want some more options, here's an article on my blog outlining a few - I'd recommend Feedly. Sign up, follow the instructions and have a play.)

First make sure you're still logged into your York account, then go to http://theoldreader.com and choose the Sign in with Google option from near the top-right of the page. It'll ask you to 'Allow Access'; say yes to this. The screen will look much like this:

Click the ADD A SUBSCRIPTION button - you can then copy and paste any RSS feed into the box that appears below it, and it will subscribe to that feed for you. 

For example, try copying and pasting in the feed for this blog:  http://feeds.feedburner.com/23ThingsYork. Click the red and green + button and you should see this very blog appear before your eyes. You can subscribe to any blog this way - getting the feed address for the blog by clicking the RSS feed symbol wherever you see it, then copying and pasting it into Old Reader.  

Here are some blogs worth subscribing to - you can subscribe to some, all or none of them depending on where your interests lie:

• Techcrunch is a regularly updated blog about new technology, social media etc - it's an industry blog, so only subscribe if you're interested in that sort of thing... The RSS feed for the European version is http://feeds.feedburner.com/Techcrunch/europe 
• Phil Bradley is an internet consultant - he writes about Library issues but most of his blog posts are about useful tools like the ones covered in this 23 Things programme, and advice on searching online, so hopefully his blog should be of interest to both Library and IT staff. The feed for his main blog is http://philbradley.typepad.com/phil_bradleys_weblog/atom.xml 
• The Digital Scholarship blog is a useful blog from the Library and IT - the feed is http://feeds.feedburner.com/digitallearningyork
• Tom Smith's Collaborative Tools blog can be found at http://collaborative-tools-project.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
• Finally there's Stephen's Lighthouse, which is more library focused, but has loads of links and updates about new and emerging trends. Just copy and paste the URL for the site into Old Reader: http://stephenslighthouse.com/  

You can find more blogs relevant to your professional (or personal) interests by typing keywords into Google Blog Search.

Later in the week, once everyone has had a chance to do the Activity in Thing 3, you can also subscribe to each others' blogs - here's the list of 23 Things participants, along with the URLs for their blogs (click on the link and you should have permissions to view the google spreadsheet). Go to each blog, and subscribe via Old Reader in the same way as above (assuming people have completed Thing 3).

Time to really start blogging... 

That's it for blogs and blogging, for now - next week we're moving onto other forms of social media. At this point it's time to start using the blogs we've created to write about and reflect on our experiences. Try writing a short blog post about RSS Feeds, perhaps mentioning which blogs you've subscribed to, which you'd recommend, whether you found it easy or difficult, etc.

Here's an example of a nice 23 Things blog from a librarian at Warwick - she won the 'Best Blog' award in their own programme. Scroll down to read some of her earlier posts.

Thing 3: RSS Feeds - helping people subscribe to your blog

What is it?

RSS Feeds are a way of getting regularly updated content from a website. Blogs use them, news websites use them, weather apps use them. This is the RSS icon - wherever you see it, there's a feed to subscribe to:

Why is it worth doing?

Subscribing to a feed means the articles on the website come to you whenever they are published, rather than you having to go and check the website to see if there's anything new. Plus, you have everything in once place - whether it's news headlines or blog posts about whatever you're interested in. You can use feeds to subscribe by email like most of you are already doing with this 23 Things blog, or you can use a Feed-reader - basically a place online to organise, and access, the feeds of your choice.

For any blog, it's essential to make it incredibly straight-forward for people to subscribe via an RSS feed. If they want to hear more from you in the future, this is the easiest way. The more subscribers you have, the greater your captive audience!

Activity: make it easy for people to subscribe to your blog 

So the first activity for RSS feeds, which should take around 10 minutes, is to make sure people can subscribe to your own blog really easily. To do this, first you need to go to a site called http://feedburner.google.com. Like Blogger itself, Feedburner is a Google-owned product so once again you already have an account for it - just make sure you're signed into Google with your York account before you start.

Once you get to Feedburner you should see a screen much like this (except it'll have the name of your blog displayed, and there'll only be one blog listed):

Click the title of your blog to be taken into the Feedburner dashboard for that blog. The screen next will have four tabs across the top: Analyze, Optimize, Publicize, and Troubleshootize. Click Publicize. On the screen which then appears, the phrase friendly graphic is hyperlinked - click this link.

The screen that follows helps you create a button for people to press to subscribe to your blog. You don't need to edit any of the settings, just leave everything on its default setting. The only thing you need to do is choose Blogger from the Use as a widget in drop-down menu right at the bottom of the screen.

Click Go! and you'll be taken to the Add page element screen. Edit the Title so it just says 'Subscribe' (rather than the more fussy 'Subscribe Now: Feed Icon' which appears by default). Cick Add Widget and you'll be taken into the Layout page of your Blogger dahsboard; you should see a screen a little bit like this:

(This is what the 23 Things blog looks like in Layout view, so it probably has a few more 'Gadgets' on show than yours will at this stage.) It's essential now to click Save Arrangement near the top-right-hand corner of the screen, or all your hard work will be for nothing! Once it has saved click View blog (top left hand corner of the screen) to see what your blog looks like with the new subscription options. You can always subscribe to it yourself to make sure it works...

You now have a shiny new subscribe button on your blog, so everyone can get regular updates. In Thing 4 later in the week, we'll look at how to subscribe to each others' 23 Things blogs...

Optional extra activity 

If you have time and you want to, go back to the Publicize tab on http://feedburner.google.com, and repeat the process above for Email subscriptions from the Services menu down the left-hand side.