Thing 7: RSS readers (in plain English)

Good explanatory video on how RSS works and truly is the more efficient way of keeping updated with new content on the web. As I stated, I already use the Firefox add-on that lets you subscribe to pages and keep updated with the feed. I only subscribe to a very limited number of blogs that I follow very regularly. I also subscribe to a lot of LIS-related blogs, but in truth, I only actively follow a fraction of those. I'm subscribed more out of a sense of duty, that I *should* consult them, more than actually being interested in really consulting them all that often. I probably should just shift these to Google Reader and free up some space on my Firefox toolbar.

I would think you'd have to be a serious news/net junkie to actually NEED something as sophisticated as Google Reader to manage all that content, though. For me, really, Firefox does the job adequately, most of the time. Some blogs have links to other blogs, and that's how I get there, i.e. the "old" way. I follow one gun rights blog, Say Uncle, because he has a huge blogroll that serves as a gateway to other gun rights activism blogs that I follow less regularly. "Uncle" is plenty entertaining himself, and makes for a good "gateway" to the rest of the gun rights blogosphere.

So really, I use a combination of "old" and "new" to keep up with "what's new" in the world of news and blogs. Remember that a "feed" URL is not always synonymous with the "main page" URL; this is a common mistake that I've made myself numerous times. You sometimes have to dig around to find the "feed" URL, as sometimes the Firefox add-on won't be able to find it automatically (though in most cases it can). Now that I have an active Google reader account, I may start using it where I find the click-button newsreader options on certain pages.

For the time being, I'm sticking with the Firefox add-on for my top-ten blogs, but may use Google Reader to aggregate my lesser-consulted blogs and keep that content updated and ready to view should I chose to consult it. One option I positively hate is using the RSS reader option in MS Outlook. I did that once by accident and it really overwhelms MS Outlook pretty easily. I do NOT recommend the RSS reader featured in MS Outlook.