We all know someone -- some friend, relative or acquaintance -- that insists on keeping us up to date with every aspect of their life or forwarding us every email or article that they find interesting. If you're tech savvy, you know that what these people really need is a blog or a Twitter account so that you can follow them, or not follow them, at your convenience.
This article is both for you and your ignorant friend. If you find yourself in the role of the ignorant, here's my suggestion: Stop spamming your friends. If you like to keep your chums posted with many small updates throughout the day, go sign up for a Twitter account. If you are the more wordy type, get yourself a free Wordpress or Blogger blog. Both of these options with provide your loved ones with the ability to subscribe to your feed using their favorite feed reader.
So what is a feed? I'm so glad you asked. Chances are that you run into them all the time. Whenever you see a small image that says XML or RSS or "subscribe", it usually links to a feed. Also, all modern web browsers have visual cues that notify you when a feed is available for a certain page.
A feed is an XML document (If you don't know what XML is, don't worry.) that is meant to be read by a feed reader. A feed reader is a piece of software that periodically checks for updates to a subscribed feed. When the information provided by the feed is updated, this software will let you know. This saves you the time of having to go to all your friends' blogs and Twitter pages every day. Your feed reader will let you know when something new is available.
If you can't wait to get started, try Google Reader as your feed reader. It supports both online and offline operation, it integrates seamlessly with Firefox without any need for setup and of course, it's free.
If you already knew what a feed was and are already using a feed reader, it turns out that this post wasn't for you after all. Your article is here (to keep this one from becoming painfully long).
