You've probably seen them all over the place, these little XML buttons  ,
but soon you'll be seeing
this little button - 
In this case, the orange speaker button refers to our news feed (which is really just a feed to our BLOG or Web log), which you can sign up for FREE if you have a news reader.
Clicking on either button in your web browser alone will display a bunch of text that isn't too user friendly. A news reader deciphers that code and makes it much more easier to understand.
It's been suggested that only about 15% of the population actually have news readers. But, with the release of the new Windows coming out soon, it will supposedly have a built in news reader and the popularity of news feeds will probably increase dramatically.
What is a news reader and why have a newsreader?
A news reader is a way to read XML or ATOM or RSS news feeds. Per usual there are multiple ways of doing similar things on the web and then people come up with lots of different names to describe very similar processes, like RSS and ATOM and XML. Which can easily confuse things and people, including me.
And you will soon begin seeing more of this image , which will try to represent the merging of the multiple variations of RSS feed icons to one universal icon.
Very simply, any time you see that orange icon on a website, that means they have a news feed you can sign up for.
A news reader allows you to subscribe to different news feeds. For example, CNN has it's own news feed. This means if you have a news reader, you can add CNN to your news reader and stay up to date with CNN news. Anytime CNN adds a new story, your news reader will get that new information and display the headline and a little of the article. You can then simply click on it for the whole story, if desired.
News readers puts you in charge of what news you'd like to receive.
You can subscribe to as many new feeds as you'd like. It's a great way to stay in touch and up to date with the websites you like. To sign up for a news feed, get a news reader, then either click and drag that icon to your reader OR copy the http:// code in your address bar and paste that into a new feed in your news reader.
There are many news readers out there, most are FREE. Here's the ones I like...you'll only need 1, but shop around for the one you like best:
1) Feed Reader - Desktop news readers, checks all your feeds every couple minutes and display the latest headlines right on your desktop.
2) Google Reader - Online reader by the infamous Google.
3) Blog Lines - Online reader, very popular.
4) Sage for Firefox - Great feed reader for FireFox users.
5) News Gator - Online news reader, also very popular.
Suggested News Feeds
CNN
Design Your Own Web
The New York Times
And for tons more great news feeds, search for 'news feed' directories...
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