Webupon

If you are looking for a simple yet effective method of reading news and blogs that have an rss feed, Bloglinesis the route to go.  Bloglines is packed with extra features such as opening up your own blog that you can place clippings of your favorite news pieces into the blog with one click as well as place into individual folders that are labeled.

 Once you sign up to Bloglines, you will receive a notice in your email of verification of your membership. You will need to click on that link that you receive to verify the account you opened with Bloglines.

 When you begin to set up your account, you will also be given some choices of feeds they already have set up within Bloglines. This was an effective method for me since many of the feeds I was already enjoying such as Tech Crunch, Fox News, USA Today and Read Write Web. The list is quite extensive to choose from and you simply click on the box to add it to your feed list.

 On the left hand side of your screen you will see the buttons feed, blog, clippings and play lists. The feed button is the best place to start when you first join. If you click on the button feed, it will lead you to your listing of the feeds you either subscribed to when you joined, or the ones you added.

 Click on your chosen feed such as Tech Crunch as an example, which is located on the left hand side of your screen as you can see in the picture below. Listed at the top of the page in a blue navigation bar is a variety of options. Related feeds, mark all new, unsubscribe and edit subscription. We will begin with editing the subscription. I find this a very important button to begin with so you can edit how you wish your subscription to appear on your reader you set up with Bloglines.

Editing your subscription will open another page on your screen with a variety of options. The name would be the name of the feed, and the folder would be the folder you would like to place that feed into. As you can see from the photograph, this particular picture is of Read Write Web, which I have placed into a technology feed. The next part to focus on is whether you want it public or private view. If you are not going to be opening up a blog on Bloglines, then no one else other yourself and other subscribers to that site or blog would see the feed in the reader. That particular feature of public or private is when you do open a blog through Bloglines. The list of the feeds you subscribe too will show on the Bloglines blog page on the left hand of the screen. By placing that feed as private, it will not be shown on your Bloglines blog page.

Along with editing your subscription, a display preference is another feature in that section that should be used on all your feeds. Ask yourself how you wish to view that feed in your reader to make the appropriate choice for yourself. Not all sites will support complete entries, which will be apparent when you can not read the entire posting. Those sites want traffic to come to the blog or site to read the article first hand.

 Unsubscribe is the button you would click when you want to cancel your subscription to the feed. Related feeds is a very worthy feature, it can lead you to other subscriptions you might be interested in beginning to read that have related content and information to what you already enjoy reading and subscribing to already. When you click on the possible interest, you can gain a preview first of that blog or site that you can read and test to see if you want to add that subscription to your account. Adding that subscription you are previewing is a very simple option by simply clicking in the corner of the page to subscribe to it.

 The button beside feed would be the blog button. This button only works if you open up a blog through Bloglines. The blog available on Bloglines is limited in what you can add to the blog. You can place clippings or individual postings, but you can not change the theme or design. You can add your link or URL to your personal site or blog outside of Bloglines. On your blog through Bloglines, you will see the feeds you subscribe too that you have placed as public. These will rest on the left hand side of the page. When you fill out your information this is also shown on your blog through Bloglines, however an option of keep your information private is available.

 The button “clippings” would be the clippings you have decided to place into that section with the option at the bottom of each posting on individual feeds. When you are reading a posting, in the bottom right hand corner will rest an option of placing it as a clipping into the blog you created or into the clipping section.

Bloglines is a worthy reader, and many extra features to be quite content with. I strongly urge you to enjoy and use this program if you are truly into monitoring your favorite sites with feeds.