RSS feeds. All I could think of when I heard the term was the novel titled Feed by M. T. Anderson. The characters in the book are all hooked up to the Feed. Everything comes to them by plugging the internet of the future directly into their brains. The novel is a commentary on the mind-numbing, individuality-stealing consequences of today's teen society becoming so dependent on the internet and TV. Hopefully RSS feeds won't be that bad!
RSS feeds seem to be a good way of dealing with the explosion of information on the Web, if one keeps a rein on how many feeds one subscribes to. As one article described it, it's a little like creating your own newspaper to read. What topics do you want to know about. What's being written about them. I have a brother-in-law who sends me emails of cute or funny pet pictures every once in a while. I always figured he must have too much time on his hands that he searches the web for such things. Now I'm wondering if he is on top of such topics because he subscribes to a feed that caters to that interest.
Setting up my RSS feeds took very little time. Now, when I check I can easily read a good joke every day, see what a trusted colleague has written recently, and see the latest job postings in the library world.
There were many pages where the RSS icon was readily apparent, but there were also pages where it was just tiny words at the bottom of the page. I used Google Reader and it was very easy to find feeds from the search it provided.
I can see this tool being extremely useful to teachers trying to stay abreast of news in their subject area in the education arena. I can only imagine the hours it saves graduate students on research. Now I just have to remember to check it often enough so I am not inundated.
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