Read Multiple Blogs in One Go with OPML.

Many new bloggers are puzzled about blog feeds and how to subscribe to them. In the new layout templates Blogger has provided a default "Subscribe to Posts Atom" link at the bottom of the Main Page. This is not ideal as a better place would be to place a prominent Feed Icon at the top of your sidebar as in this blog.



To subscribe to the feed of this blog click the big orange icon at the top of the middle column. The feed will get added to your default feed reader. You can do this with every blog you come across which you find interesting but what if you want to read more than 100 blogs. This is where OPML comes into play..............

WHAT IS OPML?

OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language) is an XML format for outlines. It is a file containing a list of site or blog feeds that you have subscribed to in your feed reader.


You can open the file with Notepad and see that it is written in XML but the file is saved not with a txt extension but with an OPML extension . You can create this file manually using XML knowledge but more easily using your Feed Reader settings.....

BACKUP FEED LIST WITH OPML

You can backup your full list of blog feed subscriptions from within your Feed Reader. This is important if you wish to share your feed list and also if you upload the file to any free host like Googlepages you can access it from anywhere.
In Google Reader go to Settings and click on "Import/Export" link at the top. Then click "Export your subscriptions as an OPML file" link.


You can also import other feed lists. On the same page click Browse button and select the OPML file on your PC and then click Upload button. All feeds in the file are imported in one go.


In My Yahho login first and then get your subscriptions as a OPML file here. Right click the link and choose 'Save link as'.

SHARE OPML FILES

You can share your OPML files with others by uplading them at online OPML sharing sites like share.opml.org You can search for OPML files in your speciality at www.opmlsearch.com Here is CNET News Blog OPML file :

http://www.news.com/html/ne/blogs/CNETNewsBlog100.opml

Right Click the link and choose Save link as to save it to your PC. Then upload it to your reader. You will get the feeds from 100 blogs all neatly categorized in one go in your reader. You can unsubscribe from the ones you do not wish to read.


Enjoy!

Tips on Using Google Reader with Site Feeds.

As the World Wide Web exploded with millions of sites it became tedious to surf to each site especially in the age of Dial-Up. Hence Site Feeds were invented to push content to your desktop. Instead of using a browser to fetch each site content individually viewers subscribed to Posts Atom as in Blogger Blogs and read all the content in a Feed reader.



Google Reader is an online feed reader or aggregator where you can subscribe to multiple site feeds to read their content. Now with Google Gears you can use it to read your feeds on the tram : Official Google Reader Blog: Oh Sam I Am, can I read it on the tram?



Here are some more tips on using Google Reader.............

LOGIN TO GOOGLE READER

Google Reader is an online feed aggregator where you only need a free Google Account to access it. For this get an account and go to http://www.google.com/reader in your browser.

ADD OR SUBSCRIBE TO FEEDS

To subscribe to a site feed go to that site in your browser and look for the orange feed icon such as the one at the top of the middle column in this blog. Just click on this and the feed will open in Google Reader. You can also right click the orange icon and select 'Copy link shortcut'. Then in Google Reader click on +Add Subscription link in the left pane and paste the feed url there and OK it. Blogspot blog feeds have the following links :

http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Substitute actual blog name in place of yourblogname. You can also subscribe to Comment Feeds and Label Feeds.

NEXT BOOKMARKLET

The Next Bookmarklet can be used to navigate to the next unread item in your reading list and marks it as read. To get it go to the Settings Page. Under Goodies tab click and drag the Next button to your bookmark bar.

GOOGLE READER IN iGOOGLE

You can add Google Reader to your personalized Homepage. This will enable you to see updates at a glance. Just click this button to do so :

GOOGLE READER MOBILE

To get Google Reader on your data phone point your mobile phone's browser to www.google.com/reader/m. You can also go to iGoogle (Personalized Home) and access the Google reader Gadget if you have installed it beforehand.

GO OFFLINE WITH GOOGLE GEARS

First install Google Gears. Then click the "Offline" link in the top right of Google Reader. This will download your latest items so that they're available when you are offline.

IMPORT/EXPORT OPML FILES

OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language) is used to exchange lists of web feeds between web feed aggregators.. If you wish to import all your feeds from another feed reader or export to them no need to add each individually. Just go to Google Reader Settings and click on the relevant links.

LABEL/TAG YOUR FEED SUBSCRIPTIONS

Under the Tags tab in Google Reader settings you can add tags to your feeds and make them public or private. Simply hit g then l to bring up the label selector. Then begin labeling an individual item, by hitting the L key on your keyboard.

SUBSCRIBER COUNT

The number of subscribers to your feed is available at Feedburner. To increase the number add a ADD TO GOOGLE button to your site. For example click on this to subscribe to this blog :

PUT A CLIP ON YOUR SITE

Add a clip of items from your Google Reader to your site. This has two advantages : It adds content to your site. It enables you to share your items with your viewers. To do this go to Put a Clip on your site. Click the Add to Blogger button or copy and paste the code given.

MONITOR YOUR READING TRENDS

You can monitor your reading trends by going to the Trends page. This shows the number of subscriptions, read items, starred items and shared items.

TOOLS FOR GOOGLE READER

These are add ons which will optimize Google Reader reading area and Reader button for IE. More tools here.



Have a tip to share? Put it in your comments to this post.


In forthcoming posts we will see how to combine multiple feeds into one feed. Also coming soon is putting your Reader in a Google Gadget.

What is "Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)".

"Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)" is a link provided at.................

the end of all your blog posts. This link is for viewers of your site/blog to view your blog without having to come to your blog. In the real world when we want to read a newspaper or magazine we go to the news-stand and buy it.

If you wish to change the words "Subscribe to Posts Atom" go to Template------>Edit Html----->Backup Template first------->Put a Check in
Expand Widgets Template box------------>Scroll down in Edit Template
text box and locate this code in Blog Posts widget :


<b:includable id='feedLinksBody' var='links'>
<div class='feed-links'>
<data:feedLinksMsg/>
<b:loop values='data:links' var='f'>
<a class='feed-link' expr:href='data:f.url'
expr:type='data:f.mimeType' target='_blank'><data:f.name/> FEED ME</a>
</b:loop>
</div>
</b:includable>


Substitute the CAPS instead of (<data:f.feedType/>). Change the CAPS to whatever suits you. Preview and save.

After having read it we like it so much that we decide to read it regularly. However, we cannot spare the time to go to the news-stand daily or monthly to buy the paper or magazine. It is then that we decide to subscribe to it. Then the news/magazine is delivered to our doorstep without us having to visit the news-stand.

In the virtual world regular users subscribe to groups whose members hold the same interst as they do. Some examples of these are Google groups and Yahoo groups. In these groups members post messages which are delivered automatically to all members of the group. They do not have to send emails to each member seperately. After the World Wide Web exploded into millions of websites viewers were confounded and confused and a wasted a lot of time visiting each site separately.

Thus RSS and Atom was born. These are the delivery guys of the Internet. RSS is an acronym that is short for Really Simple Syndication. It's a type of XML (eXtensible Markup Language) that is used for syndicating content. XML is used to describe data and is basically a markup language like HTML. To read the feed easily, download a feed reader like Feedreader.com or use an online reader like Google Reader.


TO MAKE IT WORK right click the link : Subscribe to posts - Atom and left click on 'Copy link location'. This will copy the URL of the link to your clipboard. Then go to your feed reader and paste the link into it.

DO NOT LEFT CLICK THE LINK because it will ask you to download the XML file full of code.

You can paste multiple such links from multiple sites on the Internet and then you will have updated content from all sites ready to read instead of having to visit all those sites one by one.


You can also use it to deliver updated content from other sites/blogs to your site/blog. How to do this is descirbed in Add Content with RSS feeds.

Similarly others can use this to deliver content from your site to their site. To prevent access to your feed you can hide this by pasting following code in your CSS part of template :

.feed-links {
display:none;

}

To see what is CSS part of template see Parts of Template.

The feed url for you beta blog is :

http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/full
http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss
http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

type name of your blog in place of 'yourblogname' in link above.

To add these links to your sidebar go to Settings----->Page Elements---->Add Page Element in Sidebar------>Choose Link List------>Enter the above feed URLs and for Titles add Subscribe to Posts :Atom and Subscribe to Posts :RSS.

In Classic Blogger the feed URL is :

http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/rss.xml

TO SET THE SETTINGS for your feed in Beta Blogger go to Settings----->Site Feed.

Here you can set the Settings for :

1) Whether you want your full posts to be sent in the feed or none or short.
2) Whether you want the Blog Comments also to be sent in full or short form.
3) Whether you want the per posts comments to be full, none or short.
4) Lastly if you want something else to appear in your feed like Adsense Ads.
5) Always try to set it to short so readers get a sneak preview of your posts and then visit your blog to read more on the topic.

For more info see :

• How to use a RSS FEED.
• What is RSS
• You Need RSS Atom

Technorati Tags:atom, feed, rss, subscribe to

TO ADD A GOOGLE READER BUTTON to your blog go to http://www.google.com/webmasters/add.html . Type in your Feed URLin the first Text box and click on Create Html. Copy the snippet of code and paste it into a Html/Javascript Page Element in the sidebar. For Example a Google Reader button for my blog is :

Clicking on the above button will enable you to add the feed from my blog to your Google Reader or to your Google Personalized Search Page.


TO ADD A Add-to-My Yahoo! Button GO TO :
http://publisher.yahoo.com/promote.php. Choose a button style. Enter your bew blogger feed urls which are described above. Then click on Generate Html. Copy and Paste the code generated in a Html/Javascript Page Element in the sidebar. I have added a button here below :



Clicking on the above button will enable you to add a feed from my site to your MY-Yahoo Page.



RSS Auto-Discovery

Auto-discovery is a way to let applications (such as Mozilla's Firefox browser, Yahoo! Toolbar, etc.) know there's an RSS feed on your web page or site. Then, the application lets users know they can subscribe to your feeds.

To see if your web site currently supports RSS auto-discovery, use the new Yahoo! Toolbar or Firefox browser. If Firefox has an orange box highlighted in the lower right corner , or the Yahoo! Toolbar has a blue "plus" button next to the My Yahoo! button on the toolbar, then you don't need to do anything.

Otherwise, please add the code below to your template after the metatags :

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="[YOUR RSS FEED TITLE]" href="%5BURL%20TO%20RSS%20FILE%5D">

Auto-discovery tips for publishers:

Please make your titles something meaningful and descriptive (e.g., "NYTimes Top Stories") – otherwise users will see "Add RSS" when they use this feature.

If you have multiple feeds, please add this code to all feeds if possible, so users have more choices.

Make sure the LINK tags go in the HEAD and not in the BODY of the HTML document.