New Addiction

RSS Feeds were one of the 23things that I was most excited to learn about. I had heard of them (mainly from the LFPL Library Catalog) but I honestly had no idea what they were or how to use them.

I subscribed to the LFPL New Audio and New Books feeds first and I really like it. I was checking out what new things we had about once or twice a week, but always forgot where I'd left off on my browsing. Now with the RSS Feed I can immediately see what's new without having to worry about where I left off, which is very exciting. I mean, I have to know when we get the new JB cd so I can reserve it! :)

From there I subscribed to Digg (it's a site I visit frequently) and People.com for my celebrity gossip and random news. ESPN was also a must for sports news.

I was surprised that the main sites that I subscribed to were local. I can now get news on Cardinal Sports, UofL Alumni News, WFPK and WFPL, and a few other Louisville sites like Louisville Groupon, Consuming Louisville, Louisville CSA, and Actors' Theater. I also have some Kentucky Outdoors feeds. I really like getting my local news and knowing what's going on around town from just going to one site.

I subscribed to NPR because, though that's the only thing I listen to on the radio, I'm only in my car for less than an hour a day. Now I can read the top stories at my leisure without having to listen to them.

I have a few fun things that I've subscribed to including Vintage Photographs, Apple Trailers (again, another one I would browse frequently), and Frommer's Travel.

When I first started exploring the RSS feeds, I subscribed to the Google Staff Picks because I figured they'd know about some neat feeds that I was unaware of. I'm considering dropping that bundle, or at least drop some of the feeds that I'm not interested in (for example Rock, Paper, Shotgun...a video game feed). I really love that I can see the posts of blogs that I follow as they're posted instead of feeling like a stalker checking the blog every now and then.

I now am quite addicted to checking Google Reader, especially with the app on my phone. I love that I can just skim the headlines and put a star next to the posts that I want to fully read when I have the time (though finding time to read my starred posts is another issue!). I also like that I can share things with my husband, especially if it's an event around town, or something that he'd definitely be interested in. This way, I don't have to make a mental note to tell him about it and risk forgetting about it. Now I can just share it with him.

After subscribing to some of the feeds, I have been able to purge some of who/what I follow on Twitter because some of them are overlapping. I think that following the NPR or YALSA RSS feeds are better than following them on Twitter because I can read the full article without having to click additional things or wait for it to load on my phone.

To conclude, I definitely will continue using Google Reader and RSS Feeds, mainly to get my news, local happenings, and celebrity gossip. It has become one of my favorite tools. I just have to watch the number of feeds that I subscribe to because it's easy to subscribe to a huge number of feeds and get overwhelmed with the number of posts to read or catch up on!