RSS Feeds

I've long been reluctant to use an RSS reader. As such, I've learned that I've been stuck in a web browsing rut, bookmarking my favorite sites and checking in with them in haphazard fashion. My reluctance stemmed from my fear of information overload and what I feared would be an ever lengthening list of articles from various RSS feeds waiting to be read. It wasn't until doing the PLCMC tutorial that I realized how much browsing time RSS feeds could save me.

I use Firefox, which has a built in RSS reader, as my primary browser. As such, I'm not sure that I see much utility in a web based RSS reader, such as bloglines, other than being able to check in on my RSS feeds away from my home computer. Still, I set up an account with bloglines.com and subscribed to a number of library and technology related blogs. I found it to be incredibly easy to use. I liked the search functions and the feature of being able to pre-populate your reader with RSS feeds by checking a box next to a variety of subjects.

To locate some library relevant RSS feeds and blogs I checked out syndic8.com, topix.com, and technorati.com. Technorati was by far my favorite of these sites. It seemed the most polished and had screen shots of various blogs and the ability to search for blogs and posts by tags. Syndic8 in comparison was much more clunky and not as polished. In addition, I tried a couple of links which were broken and noticed a couple of others which were clearly spam such as the link to a blog entry about herbal penis enhancement pills. I didn't have any particular problems with topix, but technorati was superior in every facet.

I'll be adding the feeds from my bloglines account to my blogroll later.