Wednesday, October 11, 2006

RSS For The Masses

For those who have been reading blogs and utilizing online news sources for any extended period of time, this might not be big news. But the fact that the newest update of Internet Explorer will feature a handy integrated RSS feeder is HUGE for the adoption of this feature amongst the rest of the online world. Granted, Mozilla and others have done this for a while now, but lets face it: the mass majority had IE on the computers when they got the thing, and to this day still know it's where to go to get their goods online.

While plenty of people have heard of NetVibes, Newsgator, MyYahoo, etc. I still think that the majority of online users have little to no understanding of what an RSS readers is or what it can do. As well, I don't know if many are jumping to go scouring webpages to find RSS feeds when they're only casual users. But an integrated feeder? Golden.

Now I haven't had the opportunity to try it out yet, so don't know exactly how it works. But frankly, regardless of the specific way it functions, I get the feeling it will do a lot for greatly expanding the use of RSS.

It still shocks me that so many people aren't utilizing RSS. In my line of work, not having an RSS feeder constantly keeping me informed of what's going on in the world and the industries that affect my clients is akin to being a surgeon who doesn't know that the knee bone is connected to the leg bone. It's just bad practice.

I think the only downside to RSS is that it can, from time to time, be a bit of a distraction. It's a lot like checking email - you get into the habit of doing it, and often far too frequently. This is one of the reasons I've avoided getting a BlackBerry, regardless of how much I want one. I'd never be able to pull myself away from it. I'm just too weak.

And if (when) I do give in to my urges for the BlackBerry, another problem presents itself. How do I keep myself from checking my RSS feeder from my BlackBerry?

Things could go downhill very fast.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Dude I honestly can't concentrate in any of my classes because I keep reading RSS feeds on my BlackBerry. It's so freaking addictive!

I'm not so sure this is a good thing though lol.