Again a title with the Billy Mayes style hype!!! In theory, the idea of RSS feeds to somehow narrow the universe sites to review is welcome. It has not exactly been a "killer" advantage for me as an educator, yet, however. In class, when we set up a few RSS subscriptions, I added some of the news sources I trust and review in hard copy form. I have NOT looked at a single RSS file, however. It is currently MORE time-consuming for me to log in and wade through the inbox--not to mention then deleting items--than to do my more conventional flipping through morning papers, and spending a little recreational reading time on the weekends. I recognize that younger folks may not consume print material as recreation. If I add to my current ration of screen time, I will resemble a modern version of a victim of Pompeii--frozen for eternity in carpel tunnel hell.
Where the RSS feed might help, is in narrowing the BING or GOOGLE-wide search I often struggle with when I seek the digital copy of the great piece I stumbled serendipitously across in my newspaper or magazine. It may also be a generational thing, but I swear A LOT when I have an article in hard copy right in front of me and then insert source, date, and author into the search engine and NOTHING remotely like the article I seek pops up.
A case in point--I found a clever quote from Jeff Tweedy of Wilco on Internet commentary in the most recent issue of Time. When I went into the Time website to search Oct, 24, Verbatim column, Jeff Tweedy and other combinations, the quote did NOT come up! Ok --I only searched for about 3 minutes, --but it was still quicker to just retype it. The quote may be safely warehoused with what Richardson tells us is the "sum of all human knowledge" but that tidbit is buried at the bottom of some very small box.
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