Create a Custom Newspaper with an RSS Reader for Free

Don’t get me wrong.  Newspapers are wonderful things.  They bring us breaking stories, weather reports, sports scores, stock quotes, classifieds, and even humor.  I understand that most current newspaper subscribers who read this post will probably not completely ditch their current subscription.  If you’re one of these people, then there are still benefits to be had from using an RSS reader.  For one, the sheer breadth and depth of information available via RSS obliterates the information within any one newspaper (or 100).

However, there is a growing number of young people, like myself, who do not have newspaper subscriptions, and may never will.  For those of you who don’t currently have a subscription, see this as an opportunity to build your own custom newspaper from scratch, picking just the topics and sources that meet your interests and viewpoints.

What is RSS?

First of all, a quick definition of RSS is in order.  RSS stands for Really Simply Syndication.  It is a protocol used to publish information that is frequently updated - perfect for  news articles or blog posts (such as this one!).  An RSS feed is simply one stream of consistently updated information that you can subscribe to.

Why should I care?

To me, the main advantage of RSS can be explained with an example:

• Consider person A, named Alex.  Alex has about a half dozen websites he/she likes to check for updates daily.  Every day, Alex goes to website 1, reads a few articles from the front page, then website 2, 3, etc.  Alex starts to read a couple of articles for the second (or third) time until he realizes they look familiar and he read them yesterday.
• Person B, Bobbie, has subscribed to his/her favorite sites using an RSS reader.  Bobbie only has to open the news reader program, and all of the articles Bobbie cares about are right there, in a clean, consistent layout.  The news reader keeps track of which articles have been read and which are still unread, similar to an email client.

Alex has to constantly check his/her favorite sites for updates, whereas the RSS reader delivers the news directly to Bobbie.

First, get a news reader application

I’m a Google fanatic, so naturally I use and recommend their Google Reader product.  It is a free web application, which means that it runs within the web browser itself, instead of as a standalone application (such as Microsoft Outlook, which also has RSS feed reading capabilities).  If you have a Google account (GMail, etc.) then you should be able to login with your current account to access Google Reader.

What types of RSS feeds are available?

For just about every type of newspaper section, there are myriads of legitamitely interesting RSS feeds to subscribe to.  Below is a list of traditional newspaper sections and some corresponding sites with RSS feeds:

Local news - (your local newspaper’s website)

National/international news

• http://www.cnn.com/
• http://news.google.com/

Classifieds - http://www.craigslist.org/

Sports

• http://espn.go.com/
• http://sports.yahoo.com/

Comics

• http://xkcd.com/
• http://www.qwantz.com/
• http://pbfcomics.com/

Movie Reviews - http://www.rottentomatoes.com/

Health - http://www.webmd.com/

If you don’t see your favorite website listed, then don’t fret.  Chances are good that any frequently updated site has an RSS feed.  The beautiful part here is that you don’t have to subscribe to feeds you’ll never read.  No more flipping through unnecessary pages while looking for “the good stuff!”  There’s no need to subscribe to feeds in all of the categories listed above.  In fact, my subscription categories are very specific and non-traditional (Android, Audio, Deals, Finance, Funny, Musicians, Programming, etc.).

How do I subscribe to feeds?

Google Reader offers a convenient way to find and subscribe to feeds.  As you may have guessed, being a Google product, it includes an easy search box to find feeds:

Create your “newspaper sections” with folders

When you subscribe to a feed in Google Reader, you can choose to add it to a folder.  This is how you can create your “newspaper sections”!  You may want to read some of your feeds daily, while other feeds may be more of a occasional read.  To separate these, you can create a folder called “Daily” that you can click on when you’re having your morning coffee, for example.

Have fun creating your own free newspaper!  Oh and don’t forget to subscribe to your favorite DIY blog by clicking here!

OUTSOURCERS: Purchase a yearly subscription to a local newspaper (or multiple!).  Flip through newspaper sections that you never read.

INSOURCERS: Use Google Reader to subscribe to news feeds from your favorite websites for free and get breaking news delivered to your news reader instantly.  Save a few trees in the process!