What is a social bookmark?

A social bookmark allows you to tag and store lists of internet resources that you find useful and would like to share with other users.  In addition to webpage addresses, these resources may include RSS feeds, videos, map locations, shopping items, etc.  A social bookmark saves them to a publicly accessible site that everyone can view from any computer with an internet connection.

Popular social bookmarking sites include del.icio.us, Digg, Stumbleupon, and Reddit.  All you need to do to use them is register for a free account.  Then, if you come across a Center for Reproductive Rights story or webpage that you want to save for future reference or share with others, simply click on one of the icons at the bottom of the page.  It will automatically be added to your list.

What is RSS?

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is an easy way to keep informed about updates to a website without having to continually visit the site.  When you subscribe to a RSS feed from a particular website or webpage, updates will be automatically delivered to your news reader. 

News reader software allows you to grab the RSS feeds from various sites and displays them for you to read, use, and store on your own computer.  Some examples include Newz Crawler and Feed Demon for Windows, and Newsfire and NetNewsWire for Macs.  There are also a number of web-based feed readers available, such as My Yahoo!, Netvibes and Google Reader.  These will allow you to read the feeds from any computer with an internet connection.  RSS feeds can also be bookmarked on browsers such as Firefox and Safari, or used to automatically pull in content from other websites to display on your own website.

After choosing a news reader, all you have to do is click on the orange RSS icon on any page for which you want to receive the feed.  Then either drag the address of the feed into your news reader or copy and paste it there.