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July 20, 2005
What's the big deal about a blog?
This blog is about and for the ASAE & The Center for Association Ledasership Annual Meeting, not "blogging" itself, but I have to point out one of the things that makes a blog "different" from other communications methods: For one, look how easy it is to use them to get an actual conversation started.
The launch of this blog has been mentioned by several other sites this week (not just the ones run by those of us who are posting to it), and you might even say has sparked its own mini-controversy (very mini): Rich and Expophile both chastise us for emphasizing to our readers that they can subscribe to posts via email, without mentioning at all the RSS subscription and how it works.
Okay, I concede their point.
So, to all you blog newcomers, here are a couple of quick tips about RSS, what it is, and how to use it. I promise, in the future, to try to keep the technical stuff like this to a minimum.
1) This site is available via RSS syndication, which stands for "Really Simple Syndication." RSS allows you to subscribe to sites that offer newsfeeds using readers. This means you can automatically read posted news items and articles from sites you've "subscribed" to without having to go to their actual Web sites or waiting to get an e-mail. Blogs provide newsfeeds, but so do pretty much all other major news publications on the Web.
2) The easiest and quickest way to get a feel for what RSS is and how it can make your life easier is to go to bloglines.com. Create an account, then go to the "My Feeds" button and click "Add." In the field where it says to type the blog or feed url, just enter this site's URL -- "www.xtremeasaeblog.org." Bloglines will find the feed and do the rest.
That's pretty much it. Poke around Bloglines if you want to find lots of other feeds you might find of interest (a good place to start is their top feeds list). Then you will discover how easy it is to be able to go to one place to get all the latest news and information from a whole bunch of different places without having to worry about going to different Web sites or hassle with e-mail spam filters.
There's more that can be said about RSS, but it all gets pretty boring. You can also download standalone software to aggregate feeds, download software that integrates with Outlook, or download the superior browser Firefox and use its "Live Bookmarks" feature.
But in any event, that's the 30-second RSS lesson.
RSS: The stuff that interests you, when it's published, when you feel like reading it. (Are you starting to wonder how this concept can be applied by your own organization yet?)
Posted by Kevin Holland at July 20, 2005 08:40 AM
Comments
I think that, while it's important to point to both ways of getting regular updates, the vast majority of ASAE's attendees probably are much more comfortable and familiar with e-mail than RSS, and more likely to use it. So if your objective is to keep people informed, it's fine to give them an e-mail option.
One thing we bloggers tend to do is get a little overly evangelical about some of the whiz-bang stuff, while your audience may not be in the mood to experiment with technology while they're desperately trying to get their work done so they can come to the conference!
A kiosk somewhere at the conference showcasing how this blog works, how RSS works, etc., might be a better way to go than trying to explain all this here.
Posted by: Sue Pelletier at July 20, 2005 03:05 PM
Kevin, thanks for giving our readers another option on how to get regular updates from this blog. We encourage everyone to try both methods. The e-mail subscription is a one-click way to get a single consolidated update each day, while RSS allows you to subscribe to updates on a closer to real time basis. Give them both a try.
Posted by: XtremeASAE Bloggers at July 20, 2005 09:33 AM
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