There are many ways to follow a company's updates. Sites like Facebook make it easy to see updates posted on a company's Facebook "page." When you log in at Facebook, you see "status updates" on your home page. This is convenient, but not everyone has access to or uses Facebook. Many schools, in fact, block users from accessing social media sites like Facebook.

At Science Buddies, we do maintain a presence at Facebook, and we're excited to have so many teachers, students, parents, and corporate volunteers, sponsors, scientists, and engineers as part of our community there. We realize, however, that not everyone interested in our materials and resources spends time at Facebook. For that reason, we work hard to make sure that our updates are announced on our blog and in our monthly newsletters.

For those of you who read the blog but are not "fans" of Science Buddies at Facebook, "subscribing" to the blog can simplify the process of following our updates.

Why Subscribe?

The benefit of "following" or "subscribing" to a blog is that you don't have to remember to check the blog every day in case there is new content or a fresh post. Instead, you can use a blog "reader" to track all of the sites you want to follow and to let you know when something new has been posted.

I've Heard of RSS

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It is a way for web authors and bloggers to "syndicate" their work. When something new is posted, the RSS "feed" registers the update. When you "subscribe" to a blog, you are actually subscribing to the RSS feed by telling an RSS Reader that you want to "follow" the blog.

A Reader?

A "reader" is an application that will keep track of all of the blogs you subscribe to. When you go to the reader's site, you'll see which blogs have new material that you may want to read or review. In other words, if the blog has been updated, the reader will know. Using a reader makes it easy to stay up to date. The reader does all the work for you and gathers all "updates" in one convenient location.

Which Reader?

There are many readers that you can choose to try. Two popular readers are Google Reader and Bloglines. Both are free online applications for "following" Web-based content to which you have suscribed.

How Do I Subscribe?

To subscribe to the Science Buddies blog, click the "Subscribe" button in the "Follow Science Buddies" section (in the middle column). After clicking the button, a small window will open that will let you select which reader you use or which reader you would like to use to subscribe. Depending on which reader you use, you may be asked to verify the feed or make additional choices.

The url for the "feed" is: http://www.sciencebuddies.org/blog/atom.xml

You should see that in any reader you choose. If you don't see the feed, or of there is a problem adding the feed, you can manually add the feed in any reader by entering the url in the "Add Feed" (or "Add a Subscription") box.