Over the last several weeks we’ve noticed an increasing
amount of super high-quality blogs and photos, both from Matador’s long-time
members as well as people who have just joined our community. As we continue to
grow, one of the best ways to stay on top of the latest content is by subscribing
to content via RSS Feeds.

For those of you already taking advantage of subscriptions,
please feel free to skip this short tutorial. My regular picks of the week are
listed below.

For those of you who haven’t yet begun utilizing this new
technology, let me start by saying: this will completely transform, and in a
sense, optimize the way you use the internet.

An RSS feed works like a magazine subscription. Instead of
waiting for the magazine to arrive by mail, however, the new “issue” arrives
instantly to your homepage, whenever something new has been created. RSS feeds
are available throughout the internet, anywhere you find the RSS icon, which is the small orange square at the top right hand corner of this blog. 

To begin using subscriptions you must set up a homepage. Dozens of homepages are available, but I recommend using
Google, which is free and very easy to use. Set up your Google homepage (also
called iGoogle), here:  http://www.google.com/ig

Once you’ve set up a homepage, you can begin taking
advantage of various RSS feeds on Matador. There are literally thousands of
feeds / subscriptions available—for example, you can subscribe to an individual’s blog, or to
the bounty board, or to every new blog that comes up—and you can subscribe to
as many as your homepage allows. Here are step by step directions for
subscribing to the RSS feed for all Matador Blogs. Once you’ve set this up,
from there it will be very simple to add any others you wish.

RSS tutorial:

1. Locate the small orange RSS feed icon on the page http://matadortravel.com/travel-blog.
These icons can be found at the bottom left-hand corner of the page, or within
the browser window above the page showing the URL address. When you roll over the icon the words
“subscribe to this page” will appear.

2. Click on the RSS feed icon. You will be taken to a page
that says “Add to Google.”

3. Click “Add to Google Homepage”

4. The subscription should now appear on your homepage. Every time
new content appears on Matador, it will come up here.

5. Look for other places on Matador (examples: Bounty Board,
Feature Articles) that have RSS Feed icons and subscribe to them as well.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

 This week’s picks:

1. Tim Patterson’s interview with New York Times’s“Frugal Traveler” Matt Gross 
– A quick, pithy conversation that aspiring travel writers can digest almost
like comfort food: reinforces the idea that behind every “famous” travel writer
is really an everyday person just trying to find balance and get the words down
right.

2.Writing tip: I can’t remember where I read this (It
might’ve been in one of Chuck Klosterman’s essays)
but I’ve been thinking about it ever since I saw this documentary on the Police
and realized how punk their shit really was in the beginning and how it
metamorphosed into soft pop toward the end. The quote, at least as I remember it, goes something like: “As soon as a punk band starts explaining why they’re
relevant—they’re finished.”

Apply this rule to your writing. Punk rock never needs
explaining. Neither should the narrator in your story. Just get it down.

3. While I’m at it, if you’re into pop culture and haven’t
read Klosterman, here’s a great title to look for in your library or bookstore:
Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

4. Manu Chao’s  latest album La Radiolina came out this week. Several of the tracks such as El Hoyo and La Vida Tómbola
have been rocking in his live show over the past two years. I have’t seen
the album yet here in Buenos Aires,
but am looking forward to getting it. Has someone already given this a first
listen? I’d love to read a review of it here on Matador.

5. http://gristmill.grist.org/
-- Another good place to subscribe: Grist has agenda-setting environmental news and
commentary.