Do you RSS?

Thanks, everybody. Anyone else who wants to chime in, please do so.

For those of you who don't know:
You've been to websites and blogs that don't update regularly, or perhaps at odd intervals. You can't remember to check back every second Thursday after the ides of the month. This is true for a lot of sites. If you could go to one place and see, "Hey, these sites have new content and these don't," you'd save yourself the trouble of visiting those sites and seeing nothing new--or missing an older update since the last time you were there. Likewise, you could know instantly if an update is posted.

Subscribing to a site's RSS feeds entails using a feed reader. I use Google Reader, but there are other options.

You can subscribe to sites by typing in their URL, and usually Reader can find it. Or you can click the RSS button on the site in question, or copy/paste the RSS feed URL into Reader. Then, however often you want, you can check in on all your fave sites by going to just one place.

Here's an example screenshot from the internets:

Yes. And yes, I subscribe to the GRM RSS feed. I pretty much agree with Keith's take. Not sure why I haven't subscribed to the CM feed; I'll probably go do that right now.

Okay, I think I'm probably just suffering from long-weekend brain, but here goes dumb question:

I can't find an RSS subscription link on the CM site, and Google Reader can't find anything to subscribe to from classicmotorsports.net (with or without prepended "www.") Couldn't find anything positive searching via Google Reader's feed discovery, though a fair few things that mentioned CM...

The CM one is pretty much identical to the GRM. Now that I check it, it's actually coming off the GRM site.

http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/feeds/news/
http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/feeds/projects/
http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/feeds/articles/

It's a good way to follow Bring a Trailer too.

Alan Cesar wrote: Thanks, everybody. Anyone else who wants to chime in, please do so.

OK!

Alan Cesar wrote: : You've been to websites and blogs that don't update regularly, or perhaps at odd intervals.

GRM doesn't have this problem, now that you've moved CM into GRM I've noticed more posts in the last 24 hours than the site got in the previous month.

Alan Cesar wrote: : You can't remember to check back every second Thursday after the ides of the month. This is true for a lot of sites.

Uh, most of us LIVE on this forum, some even sleep here...

Alan Cesar wrote: : If you could go to one place and see, "Hey, these sites have new content and these don't," you'd save yourself the trouble of visiting those sites and seeing nothing new--or missing an older update since the last time you were there.

Maybe you think it's trouble to visit the site, but have you ever had to listen to your Mother-in-Law discuss politics?

Alan Cesar wrote: : Likewise, you could know instantly if an update is posted.

F5

In reply to Raze:

RSS is not for message boards. It's for news sites, web comics, blogs. Sites you don't live on.

Yep use it all the time.

I use them but I prefer full feeds where I don't need to go to the website to see the new content.

As an example when I subscribe to xkcd every day I get to see the new comic in my rss feed. I subscribed to another comic and every day I got something that basically said new comic click here to read it.

Alan Cesar wrote: In reply to Raze: RSS is not for message boards. It's for news sites, web comics, blogs. Sites you don't live on.

Understood, but why wouldn't you just tell us on the boards? That way I never have to leave, don't make me, I'm not gonna do it!

In reply to Raze:

A fair point, and we've discussed that, too. As part of our redesign, you'll be able to see the latest content we post on the site—new car reviews, project updates, articles—as you cruise the message board.

Yes. I use iGoogle as my home page, and it's full of RSS feeds from all the various sites that I'm interested in. But, it's going to go away soon, so I need to do something else. I guess I will go with Google Reader, but I like the more "static" nature of iGoogle.

Or just build your own, Tom Wouldn't be hard to build a PHP-based reader that could act as a home page. Although I'm not sure how iGoogle differs from Reader.

I've seen RSS feeds for forums as well. Doesn't work with highly active ones, but it's useful for quieter specialized ones.

I just counted - I've got 37 feeds in my Reader. Some are from sites that have become somnolent, or that update very, very rarely. But I love it when they do, such as Hoopty Rides. Some are regular posters, like Bring a Trailer and Dilbert. Some post in bursts, like WRC.com. Visting them all every day looking for updates would be a pain in the patootie.

Another Google Reader user here.

Keith Tanner wrote: Some are from sites that have become somnolent, or that update very, very rarely. But I love it when they do, such as Hoopty Rides.

An update on Hoopty Rides is like a sudden sunny and warm day in the middle of the winter! He's got a great eye and a great writing style.

bravenrace wrote: I have no idea what RSS means.

+1

What's an RSS?

In reply to Sky_Render:

See the post at the top of page 2 of this thread.

Never used it. Although I did have my son explain it to me since after reading about it and determining that it was something that held no interest whatsoever for me I figured I just didn't understand it. He explained it. I still see no use or need for it. I typically spend about 30 minutes a day on the internet. I check in here, take a look at google news, and read the 3 blogs that I regularly follow. Not sure why an ugly looking screen like the top of page two would make that any better.

I use it, with google reader. Only thing is, if you subscribe to an F1 feed, you need to be careful with race spoilers if you haven't watched the race yet. :)

nope

No.

It's how I track all the various car blogs. Much easier to have them all sent to google reader than visit each site throughout the day

Rarely.

I usually get tired of the volume of crap, and cut off the feed.

I hadn't until I finally compiled all the feeds I cared to follow last week and I will never go back.

I finally got around to adding http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/feeds/news/ , but http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/feeds/articles/ appears to be part of the current site issues?

EDIT: Hrm... And on the news feed in google reader, there are no titles (they show as "(title unknown)"), which is not something I get on the projects feed...

I really like being in control of what I see of a site. I'm ok with checking when I want something, and I prefer to be left alone when I don't want the info... this sounds somewhat promising, for certain things, but I don't really think its for me. Maybe its the old man in me but I am somewhat protective about my email inbox.