23 Things - Module # 4 - RSS Feeds

Okay, I have seen RSS feeds around and I have to admit that I have not used them. My current way of 'keeping up to date' with sites and blogs is to subscribe to email updates. News either drops into my WORK email if it's work affiliated or into my HOME email if it's of personal interest.

Here's one powerful example of my practice. I subscribe to New York Times news alerts on my work email. I can trust the NYTimes NOT to bombard me with anything except items of MAJOR interest. They also use excellent subject descriptors so quite often, I do not even need to open the email and click to the article. I know what has happened and that may be all I need to know at any given moment. Efficiency, efficiency, efficiency!

I have subscribed to one 23 Things participant's blog and I will view it in Google Reader. For me, however, Google Reader would be ONE MORE PLACE TO GO, beyond checking my two email accounts and Facebook for news from my friends or business contacts. [And I certainly have NO INTEREST in running my entire electronic life through Facebook, which appears to be that company's marketing direction]!

Establishing subscriptions and folders in Google Reader could clear out my email inbox though...however I value the 'one stop shopping'.

From a classification perspective, I suppose that I could reserve my email accounts only for specific correspondence to/from me as opposed to also including updates on areas of interest.

So here's my experiment. I am going to cancel my email subscriptions to two OCLC publications and instead subscribe to them on Google Reader. Next, I am going to cancel many of my political email updates (to get them out of my personal email feed) and I'll decide what I think about this change by March 30, 2012.

I am guessing that I will visit my personal email less often, a trend that I have already noticed.

I would be interested in hearing comments from any readers about how they use/value RSS feeds!