Readings (4)

Or, a short and confused history of RSS

I was amused at the scandals of RSS development outlined in a couple of these articles. It made for good reading, but it also seemed a bit petty. I already wrote a bit about the coming death of email in my post yesterday so I’m not going to go over that again (“Frodo Lives! Email Lives!).

I liked the article “Seven Things…” because it included a section on the significance of RSS feeds. I thought it was interesting that the author referred to RSS feeds as filters which would allow users to control how much (and what kinds of) information they received. One (one being me) assumes that this does not mean RSS feeds will be used exclusively, only that they will serve to be the advanced search option. I also thought the discussion of super-combinations (Facebook/ RSS/ Flickr) as the future was pretty accurate.

Both Netvibes and Rogo failed my initial test (“am I able to load the page without crashing my computer or growing old whilst I wait”). I liked the layout of Netvibes and I think I would respond much better to this format (going to a website with links and buttons) more than what feels like just another email address (the RSS aggregator I’m using is the one available through my Gmail account—which I have never been so thankful for.) I liked Netvibes better than Rogo—it was more fun and seemed to have a lot more—, but it also seemed a little more scattered: without a tight focus. I’m going to add it to my New Online Things To Try List (after Secondlife and Facebook) so I might comment more extensively later.

The University of Okalahoma Libraries’ RSS feeds seemed simple to use, but I’m not sure who it would be useful for other than Ph. D students or faculty. (I’m thinking specifically of the new books—does a first year Sociology major care?) On the other hand, the new journals feed from NHMCCD seemed to have picked a narrow and invested target audience. Still, while browsing the Tacoma Public Library’s feeds, I imagined a young mother with three children subscribing to the Upcoming Children Events feed. Their FAQs were quite good too, I thought.

So, is it unethical to use Facebook to surreptitiously, uh, spy upon an old boyfriend?