Thing 5 - RSS and Feed Readers

Wow! I was surprised that when I went to the google.com/reader website for the first time, I was already set up and the blogs that I am following from my blog were already listed! (I noticed later that on my blogger.com dashboard, under Tools & Resources, I can access Google Reader. Obviously, when we set up one account, it automatically sets up and coordinates all sorts of links.)

I eventually successfully added three RSS feeds (Unshelved, The Shifted Librarian, and CNN's Health RSS) to both my google reader account and to my internet home page. I must say that it was easier to add them to my Comcast home page and that I will most probably access them from that location instead of from my blog or other google site. I, however, quickly found that most of the websites that I initially tried to 'track,' weren't set up for RSS. (These were all sites having to do with fabric - fabric manufacturers, small independent pattern companies, individual fabric stores.) I also searched through 'Technorati' with a few key words of interest but found that the blogs were about other topics - they just happened to contain one of these words.

I appreciate that I am becoming educated in these new technologies and I will get faster at finding and retrieving the information that I'm seeking, however, I am reminded of an article I read a few years back about the machines we now use in housekeeping. Evidently, we now spend more time washing clothes than people did before the invention of the washing machine!

Anyway, I really liked the YouTube Video "RSS in Plain English" from the Common Craft Show people. It really is a good initial overview of RSS. I'm a visual learner and I found their simple drawings memorable. I also really liked their analogies.