#4

I've been using Google Reader for well over a year now, and I don't know how anyone keeps up with the internet (that's right, the entire internet) without it, or without something like it.

It's such a great way to keep up with everything I find interesting, divide it into categories, save posts I like for later (if I can't read the entire post right then and there), etc. When it comes to having a really personalized homepage, that's sort of what Reader is to me. It's all the news / information that matters to me because, well, I chose the sources.

One of the aspects I like the most about it is the ability to share posts with others. My wife and I will share posts back and forth just about every day from the different blogs we follow. She'll share recipes with me that she thinks we might want to try, I'll share goofy pictures or a blog post about a band I think she'll like. I also get to share with other friends who choose to follow my shared items, although it is sometimes discouraging that often it is only my wife and I sharing back and forth and making comments. I wonder if the user base on Google Reader is not as strong as I imagine it is (or should be)? Or maybe my other friends just don't check in on their reader as much, and just share with each other on Tumblr? I still share links on Facebook, but it's easier / more instant with Reader.

Another thing I like is the Explore feature. When using Explore, Reader throws random recent posts at you from blogs that are somehow related to ones you already subscribe to (sort of like Amazon's "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought," but with, you know, blogs). I have stumbled across some good posts and actually subscribed to some blogs as a result of poking around using Explore. This is an example of what I mean from the previous post about coming across news sources / blogs of interest "organically."

I think Google Buzz has been a way that they tried to integrate Reader with a more deliberately social function, but it was really awkward. I disabled Buzz on my account the same day I tried it.

I think librarians could use RSS to, of course, keep up with library blogs that are specific to whatever kind of librarianship they are involved in and be part of the conversation regarding trends, changes, news, etc. As far as using RSS to help patrons, I'm not sure how a library could use it beyond creating a blog / feed that their users could subscribe to where they could post news about new arrivals, events, and so on.

Here are a few favorites in my Reader:
-The Great Showdowns: Epic movie showdowns as illustrated by Scott Campbell (with the term "showdown" sometimes being applied very loosely, making the drawings even more funny).
-Rad Dudes: The name says it all. Also, rad kids and rad ladies.