Everyone these days either has a blog or a guild site that they post to regularly; and it's especially common amongst the World of Warcraft and the greater MMORPG community. One of the neat features of most of these sites is that they allow you to subscribe to other blogs, like WoW Insider. The software of these sites and tools can put up our headlines in easy to access places, so you and all your friends can stay up to date on the latest World of Warcraft news.
Getting this setup might seem like a hard thing to do, but it's really not. In fact, with our guide, complete with pictures, you'll be able to get WoW Insider's latest news on your site in no time! We give you step-by-step instructions for sites and software like Guild Portal, Guild Launch, Blogger.com, Word Press, vBulletin, Google Reader, Outlook, and more. We also tell you the info you need to get our news setup on any other site.
Continue reading on for a complete list of guides we provide.
In an ongoing series of articles we'll show you how to put WoW Insider on your own blog, guild website, personal website, or even on your computer's desktop. For a complete list of the software that's covered, check out our guide's index.
About blogger.com
This site is owned and operated by Google, and has a lot of popular features. It's very popular and easy to use. You can be rest assured that while the site looks, and is, easy to use, there is still a lot of power with it, just like anything else the folks over at Google produce. How to syndicate WoW Insider on your blogger.com blog
Log on to your blogger.com blog and head over to the Dashboard. This is where you write your posts.
Click on the Layout tab. It's located right under the name of your blog, in the upper left hand corner of the webpage.
While in the Layout tab, click on the "Add a Page Element" rectangle in the middle of the webpage.
A window called "Choose a New Page Element" will come up. Scroll down until you see the Feed element and click the big blue "Add To Blog" button.
Enter the RSS feed URL as seen in the above screenshot. It's http://www.wowinsider.com/rss.xml
Click the orange "Continue" button.
Title the feed, and choose the options you want. You can see what the feed will look like on your site in the preview box.
Click the orange "Save Changes" button.
You will be returned to the Layout tab of your Dashboard. You can see that WoW Insider is now listed in your side page elements.
Click the orange "Save" button. You're done! You've now added a WoW Insider feed to your blogger.com site!
In an ongoing series of articles we'll show you how to put WoW Insider on your own blog, guild website, personal website, or even on your computer's desktop. For a complete list of the software that's covered, check out our guide's index.
About WordPress
WordPress is a fancy blogging site that has a lot of features. In fact, I think it has more features than Google's blogger.com. However, it's not as easy to use, nor does it flow as well as blogger.com does. Nonetheless, it's a really great site and is pretty popular. Getting WoW Insider on your wordpress.com site isn't hard at all.
How to syndicate WoW Insider on your wordpress.com blog
1. Open up the Dashboard of your wordpress.com blog. This is where you create posts and edit your blog site.
2. Click on the top "Presentation" tab, and then click on the "Widgets" tab right bellow that. You want to see the screen pictured above. 3. Scroll down until you see the "RSS 1" widget. Left click and hold on the widget rectangle.
In an ongoing series of articles we'll show you how to put WoW Insider on your own blog, guild website, personal website, or even on your computer's desktop. For a complete list of the software that's covered, check out our guide's index. About Guild Launch
Guild Launch is a popular site that hosts guild's websites. It's popular because it has advanced forums, integrated wiki's for each guild, easy administration, and lots of space for file storage. It's also not to hard to use, and the free version is pretty good.
How to syndicate WoW Insider on your Guild Launch website
1. Log in as an administrator. 2. In the Site Admin area of your sidebar on the left of the webpage, click "Sidebar Widgets". For me, it's the last option.
3. Choose a widget, in this case an "RSS Feed" widget. You can also specify where you want the widget to go. 4. Click the "Add Widget" button.
5. You'll now see that you've added an RSS Feed to your site's layout. Click the little pencil in the RSS Feed box.
6. Fill in the settings as you see above. 7. Click the "Submit" button.
8. You'll see now that the settings reflect the changes you've made, and you're ready to go! You've just added WoW Insider to your Guild Launch site!
In an ongoing series of articles we'll show you how to put WoW Insider on your own blog, guild website, personal website, or even on your computer's desktop. For a complete list of the software that's covered, check out our guide's index.
About GuildPortal
GuildPortal is a very popular WoW guild website, and has been around for a long time. Because of that, it's a very mature piece of software, and has lots of ins and outs. It's not the easiest thing to use, and has some notoriety as being difficult at times. It also costs money to use anything but the most basic free features. In fact, RSS syndication, and thus the ability to get WoW Insider syndicated on a GuildPortal site, is part of the pay only package. Because of this, we can only take you half way – right up to where I get an error saying I need to pay.
How to syndicate WoW Insider on your GuildPortal website
1. Login as an administrator. 2. Click on the Control Panel link located at the top of the webpage.
3. Click on the "Site Pages" link located on the left hand side of the webpage.
4. Click on a page, such a "Home".
5. Click on the link named "Add Content" which is located near the top of the webpage, just above all your pages content items.
6. A window will open, asking you to choose what type of content you want to add. Fill it in as pictured above. 7. Click the "Save" button. 8. This is where you'll need to pay for the site for things to work. What you'll want to do next is click the "Edit Content" link of the content you just added. Another window will open up. There, you want to type in the RSS feed URL for WoW Insider, which is http://www.wowinsider.com/rss.xml . After that, you'll be done, and see a WoW Insider feed on your guild's website!
In an ongoing series of articles we'll show you how to put WoW Insider on your own blog, guild website, personal website, or even on your computer's desktop. For a complete list of the software that's covered, check out our guide's index. About vBulletin Board
vBulletin Board is a very advanced piece of software that has to be installed on a website. It uses backend technology to make a very nice forum website. Ask your web provider if they have a vBulletin Board system setup for you already. If not, you might have to go through installing it and setting up the basic functionality. While this process is not too hard, it is beyond the scope of this guide. However, once everything is all setup, getting WoW Insider syndicated on your vBulletin Board site is easy.
How to syndicate WoW Insider on your vBulletin Board website
1. Log in as an administrator.
2. Scroll down the left side administrator tools until you see "RSS Feeds". Expand that topic, and select "Add New RSS Feed".
3. Fill in the information as shown above, and select the options that fit your needs. 4. Scroll down and click the "Save" button at the bottom of the page.
5. That's it. You're now syndicating WoW Insider on your vBulletin Board site! Give it five to ten minutes to grab the news from WoW Insider, and you'll soon see it on your site's forums.
In an ongoing series of articles we'll show you how to put WoW Insider on your own blog, guild website, personal website, or even on your computer's desktop. For a complete list of the software that's covered, check out our guide's index. About Google Reader
Google has developed an online tool that coalesces all your RSS feeds into one source. It's a very handy tool, and is one of the windows that I always have open. For me, it helps me stay abreast of everything happening in the world in one easy spot. One of the best things about Google Reader is that you can search through news with ease, and you can search through lots of news in just seconds.
How to add WoW Insider to your Google Reader
1. Logon to Google Reader. 2. As you can see from the above screenshot, I already have WoW Insider in my reader's list. However, you probably don't. What you want to do is click the green "Add subscription" link.
3. This will open up a window as shown above. Type in "wowinsider.com" and click the "Add" button.
4. WoW Insider is now added to your Google Reader! You can see it on the list of subscribed sites to your left.
In an ongoing series of articles we'll show you how to put WoW Insider on your own blog, guild website, personal website, or even on your computer's desktop. For a complete list of the software that's covered, check out our guide's index. About Microsoft Outlook
Outlook is a staple of many businesses. While the program itself does have its problems, no one can deny its overwhelming acceptance in the work place. Because of this, people often spend hours a day in Outlook – answering emails, scheduling with the calendar, and managing contacts. One of the features that Microsoft has included in Outlook is an ability to subscribe to RSS news feeds. By adding WoW Insider to your Outlook news feeds, you can conspicuously stay abreast of WoW news while at work.
How to add WoW Insider to Microsoft Outlook
1. Open up Microsoft Outlook 2. Right click the "RSS Feeds" item located on the Folders bar on the left hand side of the screen.
3. Select "Add a New RSS Feed..."
4. This will open up the "New RSS Feed" window. Enter WoW Insider's RSS feed address, which as pictured above, is http://www.wowinsider.com/rss.xml . 5. Click the "Add" button.
6. Outlook will likely ask if you want to add the feed, and ask if you trust WoW Insider. Click the "Yes" button.
7. You're done! WoW Insider posts will appear just like other emails will in the preview pane of Outlook. This is great for work environments!
In an ongoing series of articles we'll show you how to put WoW Insider on your own blog, guild website, personal website, or even on your computer's desktop. For a complete list of the software that's covered, check out our guide's index. About Windows Vista
Love it or hate it, eventually you'll probably end up using it. One of the neat features of Vista is the Sidebar, which is a place where you can put widgets that do different things, like tell the time, show what your EVE Online character is training, or tell you what the weather is like outside.
How to add WoW Insider to your Windows Vista's Sidebar.
1. Right click on your Sidebar and choose "Add Gadgets..."
2. This will open up the gadgets window. Double click the "Feed Headlines" gadget. 3. Close the gadgets window.
4. You'll now see the new gadget added at the top of your sidebar.
5. Open up Microsoft Internet Explorer and go to http://www.wowinsider.com/rss.xml 6. Click the "Subscribe to this feed" link.
7. A window will open up. The default settings will be fine. Click the "Subscribe" button. 8. Position your mouse over the feed gadget on your side bar and click the little wrench icon. It'll appear towards the upper right hand side of the gadget.
9. A window like the one above will slide out of the gadget, asking you what feed you want to display. 10. Choose to display "WoW Insider", and set the number of headlines to whatever you want. 11. Click the "Ok" button.
12. You're done! Left click on a feed headline to read the WoW Insider article.
In an ongoing series of articles we'll show you how to put WoW Insider on your own blog, guild website, personal website, or even on your computer's desktop. For a complete list of the software that's covered, check out our guide's index. About a generic RSS feed
With all of our previous guides, we've basically setup the site using the RSS address for WoW Insider. Getting this address, or any other site's address, is pretty easy – but often not understood. The old adage "If you teach a man to fish, he can eat for his life," comes into play here. If you can get the RSS address for WoW Insider, then you can get it for any page and use the other guides to syndicate any other site.
How to get WoW Insider's RSS Feed Address
1. Go to http://www.wowinsider.com/ 2. Click on the little orange RSS icon in the address bar.
3. You'll be taken the RSS feed, and you'll see that the address in the address bar has changed. For WoW Insider, this happens to be http://www.wowinsider.com/rss.xml . Each site will different. Just copy this address – this is the RSS feed address. 4. Use this address in any program or website that can accept it! WoW Insider, or any other site, can easily be syndicated like this.
In an ongoing series of articles we'll show you how to put WoW Insider on your own blog, guild website, personal website, or even on your computer's desktop. For a complete list of the software that's covered, check out our guide's index. About PHP and RSS
PHP is a very fun programming language. Just like World of Warcraft, it is easy to learn, and difficult to master. The idea behind PHP is that you enter a script, located within your webpage, and the server processes the script as it send the webpage to your visitor's web browser. PHP and things like it literally power the web – everything from WoW Insider, to Google, to Amazon. For more information on PHP, I highly recommend O'Reilly's book Learning PHP.
How to get syndicate WoW Insider using Magpie RSS
The easiest RSS syndication addon for PHP I've found is Magpie RSS. It's quite simple to use, and can easily integrate itself into existing page architecture. A sample Magpie script that would syndicate WoW Insider would look like this:
Of course, the above is just a rough template and doesn't include any formatting or bulleting or anything like that. Where other sites and tools listed above will provide you with lots of bells and whistles off the bat, PHP is bare bones – you have to make everything from scratch. Luckily there's a lot of great information out there and most of the work has already been done. However, that work is beyond the scope of this guide.
Reader Andy wrote in this morning to tell us about what he read while having his morning cup of joe. From the The Guardian's article on The world's 50 most powerful blogs:
"46. WoW Insider"
Ummm... really? Cool!
While I consider us to be a major source of news, information, and QQness about World of Warcraft related things, I never really thought that we'd ever be included on a list like this. It's kind of nice. So who did we beat? And who beat us?
As I've said a few times on the site before, I love seeing Archmage Vargoth in the weirdest of places. Wherever players can go, I love seeing that little purple guy show up, too. And so reader Horns has made my day-- he's started a blog completely dedicated to seeing Archmage Vargoth all over Azeroth. Vargoth in the Undercity, Vargoth in Feralas, Vargoth in that little cave above WC, and Vargoth under the hammer of Rag in MC.
Awesome. And Horns needs your help-- if you've got a pic of Vargoth in a funny or interesting place (or even a boring place-- would be awesome to see a hundred Vargoths standing in Ironforge's AH), get it to Horns and he'll post it for you. I'd really like to see Vargoth in places that he shouldn't go-- since he actually summons a little bit off center of the player, it should be possible to stick him in place players can't go, shouldn't it? Like on the roofs of buildings in Stormwind? I'll try messing around with it when I get a chance, but if you guys pull it off, send the pic to Horns.
Our BlizzCon coverage continues all this week-- we're sending our staff out to Anaheim (I'll be out there on Tuesday laying all the groundwork), culminating in the second BlizzCon event on Friday and Saturday. So whether you're going or not, stay tuned to WoW Insider all week for breaking news, liveblogging events, and pictures, video, and tons of coverage from Blizzard's big get-together.
And don't forget that all of our coverage is being co-presented with Xfire. In addition to their BlizzCon info page, they've also set up a special "blizzcon2007" account, and both Xfire and WoW Insider staff members will be blogging there during the event. Also, if you have an Xfire account, be sure to add "blizzcon2007" to your Friends-- that way, you'll be able to get invites to Xfire chats later this week coming directly from the BlizzCon exhibit hall. And if you don't have an Xfire account, then get one for free!
So this is it. It's time to hear about Zul'Aman and the next expansion. It's time to see Starcraft II playable and in action. And maybe it's time to hear about that third game Blizzard is working on? At BlizzCon, you never know. Stay tuned to both WoW Insider and Xfire to find out.
Tobold linked to a new blog about MMO gaming called Hardcore Casual, and the first entry is a nice one-- it's all about the differences between a "carebear" game like WoW, and the much more hardcore games of the past. His big example is Ultima Online, where players could gank each other and actually loot the corpses. Playing a game where others could steal your armor is very different from playing a game where BoE means it's yours forever.
But you don't have to go back that far to find a really hardcore game-- in Blizzard's own Diablo 2, you could play "hardcore mode," which meant that when your character died, that was it. Game over, no respawns, nothing. Either you lived and beat the game, or you died and lost the ability to play your character and everything with it.
To tell the truth, I'd love to see a server like that in WoW. Not because I'd love to play it (what are you, crazy?), but because the stories coming off of that server would be terrific-- we could all just stand in awe of the character who made it to 70 on the Hardcore server. Or would that even be possible? Especially if the server was PvP (and it would be, wouldn't it?), it seems like an impossible challenge to keep a character alive that long, especially since the other side would be gunning for anyone who got too high. Would you play on a hardcore server, where you could lose your life (and/or your gear)?
Everyone these days either has a blog or a guild site that they post to regularly; and it's especially common amongst the World of Warcraft and the greater MMORPG community. One of the neat features of most of these sites is that they allow you to subscribe to other blogs, like WoW Insider. The software of these sites and tools can put up our headlines in easy to access places, so you and all your friends can stay up to date on the latest World of Warcraft news.
Reader Andy wrote in this morning to tell us about what he read while having his morning cup of joe. From the The Guardian's article on 
Tobold linked to a new blog about MMO gaming called 
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