What is a feed reader, how does it work, and why use one?

David Williams RSS Tutorial at Create Business Growth offers lawyers just learning about blogs and RSS a nice explanation of how slick RSS is. Most importantly, David explains you don’t need to understand how to create RSS feeds or what they’re all about technically, to stream your favorite content into one place via a feed reader.

David’s nice summary:

• What is a Feed Reader? It’s kind of like a virtual magazine ‘shell’ that always updates with the latest stories from your favorite bloggers and content providers.
• How does it work? Without getting technical, it automatically displays current posts from blogs and websites that you’re subscribed to and alerts you to new posts.
• Why use one? To stay on top of the news, opinions, surveys, and expert advice in your industry and on topics that you want to learn more about.

David goes on to explain how to set up Google Reader as your RSS reader. Good read if you’re just getting started.