#9 Finding Feeds

Now that you have a newsreader, you can begin adding other newsfeeds that interest you. There are several ways you can locate newsfeeds:

• When visiting your favorite websites — look for news feed icons that indicate the website provides it. Often a feed icon will be displayed somewhere in the navigation bar of the site. (Here’s an image that contains a sampling of several feed icons).
• Other Search tools that can help you find feeds:
  • Topix.net – This search tool allows you to locate recent newsfeed items based upon keyword or phrase searching. The tool focuses specifically on news and media outlet RSS feeds for information, not weblogs.
  • Syndic8.com – Syndic8 is an open directory of RSS feeds that contains thousands of RSS feeds that users have submitted.
  • Technorati – Technorati is a popular blog finding tool that lets you search for blogs. Since RSS feeds are inherent to all blogging tools, Technorati Blog Search can help you find RSS feeds for topic specific blogs you may be interested in.
    Additonal Resource: Technorati Tutorial on finding and adding your blog
• And good old-fashioned links from other blogs and websites that you like. For instance, maybe you enjoy reading the Daily Dose from Domino Magazine. If you scroll a little down and look to the left, you’ll see a slew of design and style blogs that they recommend:

Discovery Excercise:

1. Play around some more in Google Reader. Read some of your feeds.
2. Create a blog post about your experience. Don’t know what to blog about? Here some questions to think about …
   

   Which method of finding feeds did you find easiest to use? Which Search tool was the easiest for you? Which was more confusing? What kind of useful feeds did you find in your travels? Or what kind of unusual ones did you find? What other tools or ways did you find to locate newsfeeds?