This is the second part of this article, to learn what a feed reader is take a look at the first part.

Now you will learn how to choose a feed reader and start using one.

Choose Your Feed Reader

You can get a feed reader to install in your computer or use a web based one. In both categories there are paid and free ones.

I prefer free web based feed readers because you can read your favorite feeds from any computer with an Internet connection and it doesn't cost a dime.

If you have an account with My Yahoo, Google or Netvibes you may already be using a web based feed reader without knowing it.

If you are currently logged into one of those services you can subscribe to feeds using buttons like these:

There are also specialized web based feed readers, like Bloglines and Rojo, that allow you to better organize and read your feeds. These are the ones I prefer.

If you have an account with any of them you can subscribe to feeds using buttons like these:

No matter what feed reader you choose, the content you get is always the same, the only difference lays on how you access to it.

I like Rojo because of the simple feed subscription process and how powerful is for organizing my feeds using the words I choose, the buzz name for this is “tagging”.

Ok, let's see how it works.

The Process Step By Step

Step One – Create A Rojo Account: You can open an account visiting
Rojo's sign up page. You just need to choose a user name, a password and provide your email address.

A few moments later you'll receive an email message from Rojo, there's a link you have to click and that's it, your registration is complete.

Step Two – Login To Your Rojo Account: Now you can visit Rojo, click on the sign in link on the upper right corner of the screen and type your user name and password.

In most web browsers Rojo will keep you logged in, that way subscribing to feeds and adding them to your account is faster and easier.

Step Three – Subscribe To A Feed: There are many ways to subscribe to a feed using Rojo. Let's see some of them.

Option 1: Click the Find Feeds tab in the upper right box, type the web address of the site you want to subscribe and click Go.

The bottom arrow indicates the link for unsubscribing to the feed.

Option 2: Click the My Feeds tab on top.

Then add on the left side.

And finally type the web address in the text box and click Go.

Option 3: Use a Rojo bookmarklet. Go to the Rojo bookmarklet page and drag the link Rojo: Add to your browser's toolbar (the top part of your browser, just below the address bar).

Now you have a button on your browser's toolbar, a bookmarklet, that you can click whenever you are in a website that you want to subscribe to.

Option 4: Many websites are using a service called FeedBurner, Telework People does it. If you click on the feed icon () you will be taken to a page where you will see buttons for different feed readers, these buttons are also called chicklets. Click Rojo's chicklet to subscribe via Rojo.

Step Four – Tagging Your Feed: Tagging a feed means using words or phrases to categorize a feed. For example, if you subscribe to a website with information about Japanese cartoons you could use these tags: anime, japan comics, cartoons, japanese drawings.

Tagging takes two easy steps. Once you've subscribed to a feed click on Tag this feed.

Then write the tag you want to assign to this feed and click on the button tag it.

There you are! All your tags appears in the left side.

Step Five – Reading Feeds: To read your feeds you just need to click on any of the tags on the left side.

You will see the latest content from all feeds marked with the tag you clicked on.

If you click on the plus sign next to each tag you can choose a particular feed and read content from that feed only.

Some Final Ideas

Not knowing what a feed reader is or how to use one is a big disadvantage for any serious teleworker.

You are not only wasting your valuable minutes, or even hours, visiting lots of websites, you may be missing important content just when you need it.

Subscribing to a feed gives you control over the information; you decide when to get it.

It's secure, you don't have to reveal your email address in many places to get updates.

All of this is possible thanks to an Internet technology called RSS, short for Really Simple Syndication. You don't need to know much about it, your feed reader will figure it all out for you.

So, what are you waiting for? Get a feed reader and subscribe to Telework People now. You will get access to many more useful articles as soon as they are available.