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Think You Have RSS Figured Out? Three Ways to Expand Your Options

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Did you know that RSS, as it appears today, first appeared back in 1999? It has outlasted many internet technologies from the same era and continues to be used by many people today. When you add different RSS feeds from websites to an RSS Reader, such as the Old Reader or the now defunct Google Reader, you get realtime updates from these sites in one central location. Not sure which RSS feeds to follow? Here are three tools you can use to get more options for RSS.

1. RSS Search Engine

If you go to the site ctrlq.org/rss, you will see an RSS search engine that is powered by Google but specifically formulated to only find RSS feeds. All you need to do is enter the search terms for what you are looking for. You can look for news websites, such as The New York Times, RSS feeds that follow a particular topic, such as Syria, or just see what comes up. If I search for financial news, some of the first entries are CNNMoney, The Wall Street Journal, and Forbes.

2. RSS Feed Directories

If you’re more interested in finding established lists of great RSS feeds, you might want to look to directories instead. TheFreeDictionary.com has an RSS feed directory, and here you can click on different topics such as “Cultural Publications” or “Web Design” to see their recommendations for feeds. On here, you might get a more diverse range of suggestions. MIT Research News feeds, for example, are listed under the Business section.

3. Search RSS on Your Own

Sometimes the best way to get the RSS feeds you’ll enjoy following is to look to your pre existing preferences. Do you have a favorite magazine you like to read? A local newspaper? A site whose updates you always like catching up on when they’re posted to Facebook? There are very few, if any, sites that cannot be converted to RSS. In many cases all you need to do is copy paste the URL into your RSS Reader. Although we have mostly mentioned textual information heavy websites, you can also follow web comics, videos sites, and more.

What are your thoughts on finding RSS feeds?