Method 4

8.On your blog, add links to your 3 feeds and post to your blog about this exercise. (Please include “Method 4″ in the title of your blog post.) What appealed to you about these feeds? Do you see yourself using Google Reader or some other RSS Reader to keep up with certain sites now?

The video was helpful in learning what an RSS feed is and how it works to bring information directly to you. The people who created the video did a good job of explaining how RSS feeds and other subscription services work. It's a simple yet effective explanation.

I signed up for Google Reader, which was a quick and easy process. I added three feeds to follow. The three feeds I chose are news sites from Sweden:

http://www.gp.se/1.16560
http://www.dagen.se/rss/storanyheter
http://www.svd.se/?service=rss&type=senastenytt

I have avoided subscribing to RSS feeds for awhile now because I enjoy hunting on the web for news stories and bits of information. There's just something about stumbling onto an interesting news article. And maybe I've also avoided them because the feeds seem to be one more thing to keep up with. If I subscribe to too many feeds, I'll have hundreds upon hundred of links and info to sift through.

I already have have more than 1,000 posts listed in the three feeds I just subscribed to. Imagine if I had 20 feeds or 50 or 100. It would quickly become overwhelming. All the information is fed directly to my site, but it also takes time to sift through everything and figure out what to read using this method too. I'd rather stick to my normal sites and hunt for what I'm interested in directly from each site.

I can see the advantage of RSS feeds for someone who has a cell phone or a mobile device. This would be a good way to keep up with things without having to deal with the heavy graphics and large loading webpages of a normal site. That would be a good advantage. However, I don't feel the need to be connected to online sources at all times, so this wouldn't work well for me personally.

I think the Good Reader service that bundles popular feeds by subject (Art, History, Language, etc) is also a nice touch. It helps people find new links, new information and new subjects online. That's one advantage of an RSS feeder. It helps bring news to people who are otherwise not likely to find it without a lot of searching. Some of the library feeds would work well for many people, such as the new books feed from Maricopa County.