RSS

I enjoyed the exercise this week on RSS, or "Really Simple Syndication," because although I was familiar with the concept (and always see the RSS option button on websites), I have never subscribed to an RSS feed.

I found Bloglines simple to use. I chose a few sites recommended by them to add to my subscription: celebrity news, entertainment news, simple recipes, and book sites. Then, I tried adding websites myself: I added the Weather Network for Calgary, as well as the Unshelved library comic strip.

Personally, I see RSS as a fun distraction - not necessarily a technology I will come to use regularly, but fun to go and see what's new when I am bored or have a few minutes to surf the web (not during work time of course!). I know that I bookmark a number of my most visited sites to "Favourites" both at home and at work, and for me this option works well. I can go and check sites, as is necessary, without having dozens of new feeds to keep up with; however, I can see how subscribing to Bloglines would be useful if you don't tend to use the same computer all the time - for our customers, for example! This way, you can mark websites you frequent and not worry about remembering the URLs.