Personally, I scan a lot of blogs every morning to stay on top of the trends and to see what people are up to.  Given the amount of content out there, my morning ritual was simplified when a friend referred me to Google Reader.  Now I can easily scan my own personalized online newspaper every morning!

Google Reader is a great tool and has definitely made the scanning process more efficient and has helped me discover many new blogs.   I found a great detailed Google Reader how-to guide that should offer a little something for everyone - whether you are new to Google Reader or a veteran user.

Here is my quick summary to help you get started.

• Setup - It’s simple and no downloading is needed! Just visit the Google Reader main page and sign in using your Google account or create a new one.  Once complete, it’s time to find some content to read!

• Find Content- If you are new to the world of blogs or just looking to add more, there are a few ways to add content:
  • Click the “Browse for stuff” link and go to the “Browse” tab.  Let the searching begin.
  • Manually enter the URL of a blog into the “Add Subscription” area and Google Reader will usually find the feed and automatically add it for you (thanks Google!).
  • Locate the “Subscribe To This Feed” button on the blog of the site you want to follow (should be easy to find).
• Organize- As soon as you start subscribing to a lot of feeds, you will want to keep track of them in the same way you would your emails or files on your computer - create folders.
  • To create folders simply click on any one of your subscriptions in the left navigation bar until it opens up in the main reading pane.  Click on the button “Feed Settings” at the top of the page and select “New Folder”.  Assign a useful name to it and click “Ok”.  And voila - folder created!

After this you can sit back, relax, and enjoy your personalized online newspaper!  For more details, definitely check out the how-to-guide.

What blogs do you like to follow?

With the latest release to the WeddingWire platform, we are now allowing vendors to not only link to their blog, but also post their blog feed on their storefront. This new feature will allow vendors to show their latest 4 posts directly on the storefront and link to their blog as well.

So in the spirit of this new feature, I thought I’d do a little introduction on what an RSS Feed is and how to find their feed URL (or create one).

What is a RSS Feed?

An RSS (or Atom) Feed allows blog writers to syndicate their content quickly to people across the web. Feeds are piped into feed aggregators, programs or sites that allow people to read multiple blog or news feeds instantly without having to visit the actual site.

How do I find my Feed?

Each blogging solution differs slightly in how they display your Feed link. Below is the method to finding Feed links on some popular blogging programs.

Blogger (or Blogspot)

• Blogger typically provides a link at the bottom of your blog homepage that should read: “Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)”
• Right click this link and select “Copy Shortcut” (Internet Explorer) or “Copy Link Location” (Firefox)
• Paste this in WeddingWire on your storefront

Wordpress

• Hosted
  - Feeds for hosted Wordpress blogs (the free blogs that Wordpress hosts) are simply your blog URL plus /feed/ on the end.
  - i.e. - http://yourblog.wordpress.com/feed/

• Installed
  - Installed Wordpress blogs (blogs that you host on your servers) do not all automatically have a feed setup and ready to go. It’s best to create a feed for this type of blog anyway. The easiest way to create a free Feed is to go to www.feedburner.com. It takes just a minute to setup an account with a Feed.
  - Your feed link will look like this: http://feeds.feedburner.com/WeddingWireVendors
  (Wordpress also offers a popular plug-in to manage your feeds called FeedBurner FeedSmith)
• Paste this in WeddingWire on your storefront

Typepad

• First ensure your feeds are enabled by going to your Weblogs tab > Configure > Feeds
• Then select “Post” to enable feeds
• Once your feed is enabled, you will need to display a link on your blog to obtain the link for it
  - Do so by Setting Your Content Selections and selecting Post Feed for display
• Once the is on your blog, simply Right click this link and select “Copy Shortcut” (Internet Explorer) or “Copy Link Location” (Firefox)
• Paste this in WeddingWire on your storefront

And for those creative minds, here’s a link to 51 different RSS icons for those that like something different.