Thing 9 RSS Feeds

This week, we are looking at RSS feeds and signing up with a newsreader.

http://vbpl2point0.blogspot.com/2007/11/thing-9-learn-about-rss-feeds-and-setup.html

This week's exercise involves signing up with a newsreader, subscribing to several feeds, and then seeing what we think about it all.

I signed up with Google Reader---since I already have a Google account for Blogger, I only had to sign in for Google Reader. Plus, looking at the different resources on RSS feeds, readers, and specific readers, Google Reader seemed a little more easier to work with. I subscribed to several news feeds, blogs from my library system (my supervisor's blog and a couple of coworkers). I found out that not all websites have a handy subsription icon but are capable of providing feeds, so sometimes just putting in the website's URL is enough to subcribe to it.

This could be a useful tool, what with the reader looking at the websites you subscribe to and pulling all the new text to one location, but I find that the websites I visit are usually for socializing (email and social networking), for shopping, or for specific interests, rather than news. I don't see myself really using RSS feeds that much. I have not used feeds before in my personal life and don't see how that will change much. It doesn't mean that there aren't any ways to use it, say at work. I've seen how teams in charge of parts of the library website have feeds, so you can find out more easily if there's new postings. Libraries can use feeds on websites and blogs that publicize library news and events. The info is on the website for people to look for, but it can be provided to subscribers too who use the readers. It's just one more way to connect with people.