Did you know that you can combine multiple RSS feeds together into one feed and have them sent by email to you or anyone who signs up for that combined feed? But first, let me answer the question you’re asking yourself as you’re reading this: why would I want to do that?
One reason might be that you can’t read feeds on a mobile device, and would prefer seeing them in an email sent from address. Or maybe, like me, you just don’t really feel like installing an RSS reader (or using one built into Internet Explorer), and would just find it simpler if everything came to your email inbox like a regular newsletter.
This can also be a great way to distribute information to employees where everyone might not understand (or care) what RSS is — just put some feeds together into one feed, have them distributed every so often by email, and you have automatic updates for whatever industry or field you’re in.
Combine.
First, let’s find some feeds to combine. Syndic8 and RSS Feeds have a ton of feeds you can search or browse through (you might also have some feeds in mind already that you want to combine). Combining the feeds together is about as simple as going to RSS Mix, dropping the addresses of the fields in the box, and clicking the ‘Create!’ button. You will then get a feed ID number that you can use to access your feed.
Email.
Now, if you want to send out this feed by email, you can go to FeedBlitz, create an account, and subscribe to your feed by email. You will then get emailed (I believe it’s on a daily basis by default) the feed items from all of the feeds you entered into RSS Mix. Other people can also subscribe to your feeds this way. Create as many feeds as you want using RSS Mix, and you can syndicate them all to email using FeedBlitz. Cool huh?
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March 16th, 2007 at 6:52 pm
Having being able to receive feed via email could be a good thing.
That’s an opportunity to increase one’s readership base since not everyone is familiar with rss or feed, especially non-techie people like me
March 17th, 2007 at 9:07 am
Yes, I think it’s a great way to increase readership to a blog as well. I used to use FeedBlitz to syndicate my blog — maybe I should start again!
March 19th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
Excellent tip! I can see several benefits. My experience is that many people still don’t use/understand RSS but everyone uses email. Also, certain niches may respond better to email than RSS. While an SEO blogger may expect his or her readership to use RSS feeds, this may not be the case in non-technical niches. I already make use of email subscriptions on my guitar blog but this approach suggests a few possibilities…
August 7th, 2007 at 10:59 am
I use Feedburner for all my RSS feeds (both regular and email). Is there an advantage to using the other ones you suggested over feedburner?
August 7th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
Hi John. This is a pretty specialized tip that would really only be useful in the cases mentioned above — if you’re just syndicating a blog the regular way, that would probably work for your purposes. Although giving readers the option to subscribe by email through FeedBlitz doesn’t hurt.
August 4th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Yahoo Pipes provides a similar service. Yahoo Pipes offers powerful functionality, allowing you to combine, slice, and manipulate RSS feeds as you combine them into one feed. Yahoo Pipes is also free.
August 5th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
Yahoo! Pipes has certainly grown in popularity quite a bit since I wrote this post (I can’t remember if Pipes had launched right before this or right after, but if it was out, I think it was barely out of the bubble wrap).
But yes, I would definitely recommend Pipes as the easiest way to do this these days. I’ve published quite a few feed aggregates that way, and it’s simple and painless to put them together. And, as you said, free.