Tuesday, May 25, 2010

RSS feeds and podcasts

A disclaimer....any typos in this post are the result of trying to type over the large, warm, furry body of one of our cats. Monty has decided that my desk is THE place to be this evening - and he has planted himself between me and the keyboard. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

I have been using RSS feeds from my favourite websites and blogs for a while now - and I'm a fan! I used to have a slew of favourited websites which I would regularly wade through - now I just sit back and they all come to me. If only I could train my children that well.

I have my feeds sorted into subject folders (namely Book Reviews, Libraries, Social Media & Personal), so that when I go to my home page I can choose which ones I want to look through.

I hadn't searched specifically for RSS feeds or blogs before, so I found it interesting comparing the results between Bloglines, Technorati & Syndic8.com.

Bloglines was a fail - firstly a broken link, then when I got to the homepage I couldn't go any further without registering - sorry, I like to try before I buy.

Syndic8 came up with some interesting blogs, but Technorati was the winner on the day. I liked that I could see at a glance what the blogs looked like (yes, I admit it, I'm shallow, I'm influenced by the pretty) and the fact that quite a few of the blogs that came up in my search were ones I already follow. And there were some new ones that looked really interesting, so they have been added to my ever-burgeoning feed list.

I'm not so familiar with podcasts - although I have used them in the past. I think I prefer to read rather than be read to (hmmm, perhaps I have control issues?). Or perhaps it's more a time thing - I can quickly skim-read a blog post or article and determine if it is of interest. Listening to a podcast requires more of a commitment. Oh dear - does that imply I also have commitment issues?

No comments:

Post a Comment