Using web feeds

From Thatcham Vision Wiki

Web feeds are a way of monitoring changes to a website without having to visit each one separately. This facility is particularly useful for checking on changes to news sites and blogs - for example, the BBC News website, makes extensive use of feeds. The Thatcham Databank also has a web feed which can be used to keep up to date with additions and changes.

The simplest way to monitor a feed is by using a website called an 'aggregator'. A popular feed aggregator is www.bloglines.com. Once you have registered at the site, you can add any web page with a feed to bloglines and when you visit the 'my feeds' page on the site it will, assuming that you are logged in, show you changes to any sites you are monitoring.

To do this, after you have registered at Bloglines:

• copy the address of the web page you want to monitor from the address box in your web browser (i.e. the box into which you type 'www.google.com' etc)
• go to www.bloglines.com and log in
• click on 'add' in the left column
• paste the address of the page you wish to monitor into the box that appears
• click on 'subscribe' at the bottom of the page.

The name of the page to which you're subscribing should appear in the left hand column together with, in bold, the number of changes that have been made.

Please note that bloglines and other aggregators only work with web pages which include a web feed. You can usually tell which pages have feeds by looking at the address box - an orange symbol which looks like this .

Adding the Databank's webfeed to Bloglines

• Log-in to Bloglines, or another feed aggregator;
• Go to the 'my feeds' page and click the 'add' link;
• copy and paste this address

http://thatchamvision.wikia.com/index.php?title=Special:Recentchanges&feed=rss

into the 'add' box, and then

• go to the bottom of the page and click 'subscribe'

Bloglines will then display all the recent changes on a page which looks like the one you'll see when you click on the image to the right.

Thatcham Vision Blog web feed

Our blog - which we're using for news about the Vision, links to relevant ideas and initiatives - also has a webfeed. To include it in your Bloglines subscription add this address http://thatchamvision.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default to your collection of web feeds.