I'm not sure if this is the correct forum category but I'll give it a shot.

I'm having trouble getting my head around RSS.

I'm not interested in 'syndicating' or 'page scraping' or whatever you want to call it.

All I want is to sign up for blogs and other pages that i enjoy reading.

So this is a real simple question:

9 times out of 10 when I click on the famous orange button (using Firefox at least) I get a popup box asking me if I want to add a Live Bookmark.

What's so great about that? I've already got far too many bookmarks.

The other 10th time it might take me to "Feedburner" page which IS useful because it gives me a simple option to add the site to my Google feed reader.

Am I doing some thing wrong? Live Bookmarks dont seem that exciting to me.

I use Google chrome mostly when browsing (but Firefox for web design troubleshooting).

When clicking an RSS you should be getting the option to pick how you want to subscribe to the feed(depending on what type of RSS reader you use). I pick "use Google home page" selection. Then it shows up in my iGoogle customized home page. This way, when I open my browser I am instantly greeted with all my favorite web design specific RSS feeds instead of Jessica Simpson, Brad and Angelina, etc.

Just look up iGoogle to set up your home page(if you want to do it this way). Otherwise you'll need a reader for the RSS feeds.

Originally Posted by racer x

Otherwise you'll need a reader for the RSS feeds.

Well, as I said, I use Google Reader.

But it doesnt ask me if I want to add the feed,

I just get this stupid Live Bookmark thing.

Tools -> Preferences -> Applications -> Web Feed -> set the drop down to "Use Google" (Or "Use Other" if you have a separate app)

Thanks Chris. Once again you've saved the day

One question though.

On most RSS enabled sites this now works fine. It takes me straight to a page which asks if I want to add to my Google Reader. Perfect.

On some sites though, it takes me to the FeedBurner page. This of course is not really a problem for me because FeedBurner lists the option of subscribing through Google Reader. I suppose there are some advantages for website owner wanting to funnel their subscribers through FeedBurner. Maybe better statistical tracking. I'm not completely sure.

My question is this:
What if your feed agregator is not one of the ones listed on FeedBurner?
eg. What if its not Google Reader, NetVibes, PageFlakes etc
If I'm using some obscure feedreeder does that mean I'm locked out?

I notice the final subscription option is "Universal Subscription Mechanism". Is that meant to be a catch-all for the aggregators not listed?

thank you again.

Couldn't honestly tell you, I don't use any feed readers at all

It's pretty simple. I use bloglines and I use firefox.

Websites I like or blogs that I want to read in the future. I simply click on the orange button on the address bar on firefox. It's usually the middle square orange button.

Once I click this I can simply add that website to my blog reader (bloglines).

Then everyday like checking my mail. I can login to bloglines and I can read all my favorite websites on the left side for any new and important information.

The reason people use feedburner is for RSS statistics, it's mainly used for websites that have thousands of RSS readers so they can do demographics and those type of things.

If it doesn't have the RSS Reader button such as Google Reader, Bloglines, etc. The user would have to login to his RSS Reader and manually add the RSS FEED url for the website he wants to add onto his RSS reader.

I personally don't bother to do that because it takes too much time. So if someone doesn't happen to have a bloglines button, I don't bother because I'm lazy