RSS, thing 3

RSS could totally make my life easier if I let it. I have a ton of websites that I visit everyday via links and bookmarks and typing in urls just to see if the sites have been updated. I don't know why I haven't fully embraced RSS as a way to simplify the process, but I haven't. So I'm starting now, with Google Reader! I already use gmail for basically everything, so it's pretty awesome (and so easy) to just click on that little link at the top of my inbox to check out my websites. Especially for work and library related websites, RSS can be a huge timesaver. Having all of your regular websites in a handy little list makes it so easy and quick to keep up with their updates.

For me so far the main negative of a news aggregator is that you don't get the full experience of the website you're visiting. Designers and bloggers work really hard to make their websites visually interesting. By using an aggregator you're giving up this visual experience in favor of speed and productivity. Also, I think using RSS feeds makes it really easy, for me, to skip headlines and articles completely. But that's probably just my own fault, I also have thousands of unread emails in my gmail inbox. I read the important stuff of course, but in the interest of time I also overlook dozens of emails a day.

Google Reader is super simple to use. I love how you can see the full posts or just the headlines of the your websites. I also like the differentiation of websites and blogs, very convenient.