How Do You Like Your Feeds?
RSS feeds are great for lazy and (sometimes) unorganized people like me who can’t possibly remember to visit all the sites I like. I’ve tried signing up for feeds a few ways - adding to my Internet feeds lists, signing up for emails, and adding them to Outlook. I must say having Outlook manage my feeds was one of the best things I’ve never done. Neither solution is a win-win, so I don’t sign up for email RSS.
Sorry, Email RSSers
I’ve tried, for the sake of the blogs I love and their email subscriber stats, to like RSS via email, but it’s not going to happen. I just don’t like getting emails that aren’t specifically addressed to me. Even though I signed up for the subscription, I still get that spammed feeling when an RSS email shows up in my inbox. I could sign up using my spam-only email address, but then I wouldn’t get the updates.
I Love Outlook’s RSS Integration
These days, I’m using Outlook to improve my productivity on several fronts. I use ‘Notes’ to manage my ideas. ‘Tasks’ to manage my work. I have several different ‘Rules’ set up for routing email going to different email addresses. And I use Outlook to manage my RSS Feeds. It’s one of the best things I’ve done.
No more spending minutes or more visiting separate blogs to get the latest posts - or to feel that I’ve wasted precious time when there is no latest. Instead, I can easily tell whether there are any new posts because the feed name is bold with the number of posts in parenthesis like Writer’s Brew(1). I love it. Thankfully all the feeds I’m subscribed to have their full posts in the RSS rather than just the first paragraph. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be subscribed.
Are RSS Subscribers Deadbeats?
I used to wonder if blogs benefited from RSS subscribers, since there was no real page view gain, and quite possibly a loss. A recent post on Problogger.net solved that conundrum with 6 reasons that’s it’s nothing to worry about, if it’s done right. My favorite: “A subscriber that never visits is better than a one off visitor who never returns.”
This isn’t a sales pitch for Outlook at all - though I encourage Outlook users to try out their feeds integration. It’s more of a way to encourage you to find a way to manage your RSS feeds in a way that isn’t cumbersome or time-consuming for you.
Are you subscribed to any RSS feeds? How do you get your updates?
We use a great tool called myDocs which is an add-in for Outlook, that lets us view SharePoint Document Libraries by clicking standard Outlook folders, and drag emails into these folders to upload into SharePoint.