How to use Web Slices in IE 8

Do you often visit a site just to look at a portion of it? Do you wish that you could have just that portion accessible to you directly?

Using Web Slices in IE 8, you can keep up with frequently updated sites directly from the new Favorites Bar. If a Web Slice is available on a page, a green Web Slices icon will appear in the upper-right hand corner of the browser.

This is a cool technology, but not yet adopted widely by web sites. However, there are some popular sites that are already using it like ESPN, New York Times, Digg, eBay, Facebook, MySpace and StumbleUpon.

To add a Web Slice in to IE 8’s favorite bar, browse the page that supports Web Slice. As an example I will show you the steps for adding a web slice on ESPN’s sports page: http://espn.go.com/sports/

Look for the green button on a section you are interested in and then click it. In the example below I clicked the button under the “NBA” section:

A window will prompt you to confirm if you want the slice to be added. Click “add to favorites bar” to confirm the addition:

The Web slice link will appear on your Favorites bar, click on it to see the slice’s contents.

As you can see this will allow you to access a section of a page without really loading the whole page. You can add Web Slice shortcuts to other pages that support it like eBay items, Facebook updates and Digg.

What I would want to have in the future is a browser can do this stuff without depending on the Web Slice button. For now, I will be content with RSS feeds and sites that support Web Slice.