WordPress Adds Simple Subscriptions

WordPress has introduced a new social feature for those that like to keep things simple. WordPress.com now has a subscription feature which enables users to keep up with their favorite WordPress.com blogs but also other sites from the home screen.

"Do you have trouble keeping track of all the blogs you read each morning? You may use RSS feeds to keep track, but those can be tricky to manage for a non-technical person," WordPress says.

"To solve this, today we’re introducing a new subscriptions feature to WordPress.com. Subscriptions are an easy way to track and read posts across multiple blogs, all in once place," the announcement read.

The aim is to make it easier than ever to follow a number of blogs. While anyone serious about this is already using RSS readers, which have been around for years, casual bloggers may be overwhelmed.

These are the users that WordPress targets. You will be able to follow any WordPress.com blog from the admin bar. Then you'll be able to manage subscriptions by going to the eponymous tab.

You can also subscribe to any blog out there by providing a link. This only works if that particular blog has a RSS feed, obviously. Any new content posted to the blogs you're following will be displayed in the home screen for easy access.

For more advanced users, the new feature won't prove that helpful, but there probably is an entire crowd of people out there who will find it handy.

WordPress also had an announcement about email and instant message notifications.

"We’ve also brought email and jabber notifications all under one roof, so it’s easy to turn on email notifications of new posts, or get posts sent directly to you via instant messenger. Don’t worry, all of your existing email and jabber subscriptions have been ported through," WordPress explained.