[set to the melodic stylings of Black Sabbath's Fluff (link opens in a new window, and navigates to youtube)]
Anyone who knows me will attest to the fact that I have several and varying interest, hobbies and pastimes, add to that mix the desire to stay abreast of developments in my new chosen field of web design and you have a full time job in itself just staying up to date on the information on your favorite sites and getting side-tracked on related (OK, random) web tangents. This momentous discovery is the greatest and truest indicator that I have seen of our current transition from the Information Age to the Knowledge Age. I have known about RSS feeds for some time, and I also realized the potential they had, but it was not until a discussion with my lovely wife that I realized the existence and purpose of Google Reader.
I don’t have a Gmail account (and you don’t need one to start a Google Reader account), but the way they have been taking steps to combine your communication, technology and internet needs into a one stop shop is truly admirable. Their reader, mail, calender etc. really streamlines the the cluster-frak that is the internet experience in a way they no portal site could. But I digress; this is not a Google commercial. The reader allows one to set up various sites, blogs and forums that they wish to monitor, then allows the user to read the content of new posts without having to visit the site itself. That may not sound like much, but its great when you’re following a whole mess of site, or how about when you go out of your way to check out your buddy’s blog only to find you wasted precious seconds to realize he has not posted anything, or worst still, he’s posted an absolute rubbish updated that makes you just want to reach into the monitor via your broadband connection and sock him in the face. In the event that an update exists, you can scan the title and content to see if its worth your time. If not, you can move on to more important entries. Efficiency is key here, people. There are more important things to to then surf the internet, like making dinner with the wifey, playing ball with the pupster, or watching Battlestar Galactica.
I’m sure many of you already knew all this, have been using it for years, or just don’t care. You probably stopped reading half-way through my definition of “RSS feed”, but its new and novel to me and I sure am diggin’ it. I’m not sure if its just a new way for the internet to improve our lives or if its the unavoidable evolution of the internet and our need to manage its information overload, but for me, its a way to make order out of the chaos.
