RSS and Information Overload

Depending on how you use it, RSS can either mitigate or aggravate the problem of information overload. In last week's exercises, the use of RSS as a consumer greatly controlled my information overload problem. Instead of visiting numerous sites and checking individually for updates, updates are sent to me in real time (or close to real time). It was somewhat overwhelming to log into Google Reader for the first time and see nearly one hundred new updates. However, since I don't read every post on every feed, it was easy to get through, and now I keep on top of it.

However, in this week's exercises, RSS as producer, I found RSS to be somewhat aggravating. Part of this week's exercises included creating a feed digest on our wiki. I understand the point of the exercise - to become familiar with digests - but I don't understand the greater purpose of feed digests. It only served to clutter my wiki page and annoy me (I don't like clutter). I don't check my wiki page very often, so even though I created the feed myself, I'd never use it. I'd rather check each page either manually on Google Reader. I think I'd be afraid of missing something by only using a digest.

Bloglines vs. Google Reader

As Steve put it in the homework review video, I'm giving all of my intellectual life over to Google. Well, not all of it, but certainly most of it. Ok, all of it. I now have three Gmail accounts - my personal account, an account to which my Rutgers webmail is forwarded, and the account required for this class. My personal account gets the most use, and from it I can chat, schedule my calendar, edit documents (ok, I don't use this feature too much, but it's been helpful), post pictures, and get directions. And now, I can read my blogs from it, too. I love Google Reader.

Let me start by saying that I had no idea what RSS was before this class. The RSS in Plain English video from Commoncraft really cleared things up. After watching that video and this week's other videos, I felt pretty confident that a service like Bloglines would really help me keep track of this class's blogs, as well as the other blogs I read.

Bloglines was cumbersome to set up, and I didn't like the subcription process. Once a URL is entered into the subscribe box, a list of subscription options pops up. First, at least three different feeds are presented. They all look exactly the same. Nowhere is the difference between these feeds explained. After choosing one and hoping it works, there are several more options. First, folder selection. This worked, but I'd prefer to tag the blogs, and have the option to put them in more than one folder - not really necessary for this class, but helpful for my personal blog-reading. Then, there are display settings to be dealt with. I couldn't find any user-defined-default setting for this - the settings for every blog had to be entered individually. This was annoying and time consuming. However, I think the real reason I didn't like Bloglines is because it's a totally new service to me, and I don't like to wade in unfamiliar waters.

Google Reader, on the other hand, worked wonderfully. Since I'm already a Google/Gmail user, I expected the simple interface. Adding a blog was as easy as inserting a link. The settings are universal and are easy to use. One thing I did struggle with at first was adding tags to blogs. I eventually figured out that GR's folders act as tags. I added my Bloglines feeds to GR, and I also added my most frequently-read blogs to my personal GR account. Setting up those blogs was time consuming only because of the volume I had to add; actually adding them was easy. I opened up the blogs in individual tabs, copied and pasted the URL, and closed the tab. Easy cheesy.