The First Step to Learning About Feeds – Feed Subscription Made Easy
http://freetraffictip.com/firefox
http://freetraffictip.com/pluck
http://www.opera.com/download/

The best education you can get about what web feeds are and how to use them is to start reading the web with a browser that is feed capable, or using online tools you’re already familiar with.

Firefox

Mozilla’s preview release of its latest browser update, Firefox, comes with an easy feature for feed readers called Live Bookmarks. When you come across a site that has its AutoDiscovery tag in place, you’ll see an orange RSS button in the lower right-hand corner.

You can click that button and see all the feeds that site has available, and add the feed to your list the same way you would a bookmark. It creates a folder that has the posts you haven’t read, and the option to open them all in multiple tabs or just click on the headline that interests you.

Some veteran feed readers find the interface too simplistic, but if you’re looking for a quick and easy way to start exploring the feed world and to get automatic updates of your favorite blogs, this tool is perfect for you.

Publishers can take advantage of the growing (and passionate!) Firefox fan base by including the AutoDiscovery tag in the head tag of their pages.

(When am I going to shut up about Mozilla? When you pry my laptop from my cold, dead hands. Or when you download it and fall in love yourself.)

Pluck

If you’re still in love with IE, and you want feeds in your browser, Pluck is your solution. It plugs right into IE, is easy, quick and sophisticated enough for people who are power users already.

Opera

The latest version of the Opera Browser comes with a feed reader, too, and you can download it directly from their site. 6 million users can’t all be wrong.

If you’d rather try feeds out first to see if you like them, you can try adding feeds to your “My Yahoo!” page, or using the free service at Bloglines.com . Either one will help you get a feel for them pretty quickly.

There isn’t going to be a Money Monday today. I’m sorry folks. A couple of unexpected issues arose and I had to take a time-out and handle them – and since I’m working at a reduced capacity, I’m totally worn out. We’ll resume the regular schedule tomorrow with Google Tuesdays.

And before you wonderful people start writing to me, yes, I promise I’m taking it easy – at l;east as much as I can.

In the meantime, I suggest that if you haven’t already, you take a look at Mozilla Firefox. Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Forbes magazine are soooo right about what a time-saving tool it is.

The yummy 1.0 preview has saved me even more time than the .92 version I’d been using. If you’re having trouble with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, I suggest you give it a whirl, especially if you read feeds, or find that you need to have several windows open to work.

I heart you Mozilla. Marry me?

Okay, sure, I’m already married to Google and engaged to Yahoo, but I’m sure we can work it out. Love will find a way….

I heart you Mozilla Firefox.

Not really what this post is about, but being able to type “google whatever i want” into the address bar is a nice feature. I believe you can do the same thing with IE if you have the Google bar installed, but don’t quote me on that. I rarely use MSIE and I’ve only been able to make that work once…

But in my hunt for another free traffic tip, I went ahead and typed “google free traffic tip” in my address bar, and ended up at my own site.. Someone crank up the Alanis Morrisette… I’ve got one more Google Tuesdays post then we’re done. Don’t cry though, it’ll be back next week (on time! … well. probably…)