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  • Are you using RSS?

    By Eric Stoller September 17, 2010 4:15 am EDT

    I'm an avid RSS (Really Simple Syndication) user. I admit it. I've been addicted to RSS for a very long time. My feed reader of choice since 2006 has been Bloglines. I have more than 360 subscriptions. I subscribe to blog feeds, comment feeds, job posting feeds, Twitter feeds, and Facebook feeds. I mentally digest tremendous amounts of information through RSS.

    When Ask.com announced last week that they were going to shut Bloglines down on October 1st, I was both saddened and understanding. Bloglines isn't making Ask.com enough money to justify its existence. The oft-used meme that "RSS is dead" once again reared its ugly head as virtual fingers were pointed at Twitter and Facebook as the reasons for the supposed demise of RSS.

    While it's true that a lot of people consume a lot of information via Facebook and Twitter, I would posit that most student affairs practitioners have absolutely no idea about RSS and the value that it can have for their professional/personal development. Being on Facebook or using Twitter does not mean that they have given up on RSS. They never used RSS because it wasn't on their professional radar.

    A lot of student affairs practitioners are on Facebook and Twitter. However, how many student affairs professionals use RSS? Early adopters can claim that RSS is dead, but for most people, RSS is just another unknown acronym.

    I was curious to see how many of my Twitter followers (a lot of whom are student affairs folks) use RSS readers. I figured that the Twitter using community of student affairs folks who I engage with might be a bit more technical than the non-Twitter SA crowd and I was mostly right. Several people reported using Google Reader as their RSS feed reader. I wonder how the folks who answered me found out about RSS? Was it something that they learned about in school or were they just curious about that square orange icon that appears on so many websites?

    Do you use RSS? Would you like to know more about it?

    Do you tweet? Let's connect. Follow me on Twitter.

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Comments on Are you using RSS?

  • Posted by Humanities Grad Student on September 17, 2010 at 8:15am EDT

  • I've been an RSS user for years. I came to it from Usenet news readers. RSS is more efficient than navigating through a website and a good reader (I use both Feed Demon (for Windows) and NetNewsWire (for OSX)) makes information management easy.

    I agree that RSS is underused by education professionals. The most popular choices for news distribution seem to be email blasts and, increasingly, tweets.

    Ironically, IHE has a miserable RSS feed for its columnists: news and quick takes include the first couple of sentences of the story. Columnists and bloggers only have their titles published. So unless the blogger has a good (clear, descriptive) title for an entry, I won't bother to click through and read.

  • Posted by David Comp at International Higher Education Consulting on September 17, 2010 at 10:30am EDT

  • I'm on Twitter and use RSS (Google Reader if my preferred tool for this). I think Twitter is great but you miss much in the Twitter stream when you are not on Twitter (and sometimes when you are even on Twitter). I recently started subscribing to RSS feeds of my favorite people/organizations/offices on Twitter to my Google Reader so I don't miss anything.

    In fact, I picked up your post on my RSS reader and would have missed it otherwise.

    I even posted to my blog about my RSS use in the field of international education last week at http://ihec-djc.blogspot.com/2010/09/what-do-you-feed-your-rss-reader.html.

  • more info about RSS
  • Posted by Joe Melcher , Assessment at St. Cloud State University on September 17, 2010 at 11:45am EDT

  • I don't use RSS, though I have known about it for years, mainly because I am afraid of becoming even more overwhelmed with information. Now I am wondering whether my fear is not realistic. I would like to know more, and especially about FeedDemon, mentioned by Humanities Grad Student.

  • Sad to see Bloglines go
  • Posted by Richard H on September 17, 2010 at 12:45pm EDT

  • I've been a Bloglines user for years. My mistake was to "save" many posts in Bloglines. Now I need to find another way to save that data - and quickly.

  • Posted by BT on September 17, 2010 at 4:45pm EDT

  • Same issue. Bloglines user. Right now, I've moved all my feeds directly into Safari, but it's not the same.

    Simply news feeds are not replaced by Twitter and Facebook. I still believe in the benefit of editors. Oh well.

  • Posted by Humanities Grad Student on September 18, 2010 at 3:30pm EDT

  • Another useful tool for RSS management in Windows is Feed Notifier: http://www.feednotifier.com/. This freeware and open source program monitors your selected feeds and pops up a window when the feeds are updated.

  • Posted by Carolina Grad Student on September 18, 2010 at 3:45pm EDT

  • A higher education graduate student, I just started using RSS Feeds because of a class requirement/recommendation. One of our courses is about Emerging Trends in Higher Education and it is taught by our VP of Student Affairs. He is an avid reader and he encourages us to use the RSS Feed to keep the bigger national, regional and state picture in perspective.
    I use Google Reader but it can get daunting when you haven't read for a few days and have 400 new articles. I have found it a great way to keep up with my news and our VP encourages us to always consider the next big thing, or how it could effect higher education, so it has been a great tool to learn how to use. I don't think many other SA professionals use it except our AVPs and a few others, no one else in my office uses it.

  • RSS vital for continuing stream of info
  • Posted by B-ob , Board member on September 19, 2010 at 5:45am EDT

  • I restrict my RSS feeds to less than 40. If the feed hasn't generated interesting info within a 2 week period, it's toast. Also google alerts (using the full name of my college) gives me updates on items across the web and in local news. Honing in on the news that is important is just like keeping your desk clear -- it's an art.
    B-ob

  • fastladder
  • Posted on September 21, 2010 at 3:30am EDT

  • I was a long-time bloglines user and have switched to Fastladder.com -- I don't like the interface as much, but so far it is working for me.

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