Claiming that RSS feeds are “tricky to manage for a non-technical person,” WordPress.com has built a simple method for their users to subscribe to other blogs in the network. They call it rather originally, ‘Subscriptions.’
The system allows for users to, with a single click, follow a blog on the network and have its posts fed to their ‘subscriptions tab’ in their account. WordPress.com calls the system “an easy way to track and read posts across multiple blogs, all in once place.”
Think of it like a stripped down Google Reader that can only read blog posts from a single host. The scenario for its use is this:
“Let’s say you’re reading a blog on WordPress.com that you really enjoy — so much so you want to be notified when new posts are published so you remember to read them. You can subscribe to this blog really easily by using the “Subscribe” menu in the admin bar. By going up to your admin bar, and clicking “Subscribe to blog”, you’ll be instantly subscribed.”
Groundbreaking? Hardly. But for the masses of WordPress.com users this is going to give them another nice community tool that will promote total content consumption, something that will make the average user very happy.
Flame them if you want, but this tool is a welcome, if late, addition to the WordPress.com platform.
Oh, and if you get lost the WordPress.com team has thrown together a help page.
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