RSS Challenge Part 2

As I mentioned in my last post, I added the Asbury Park Press to my bloglines account during the previous challenge, so I did that part of this challenge already.

On to the questions:

Which method of finding feeds did you find easiest to use? Which Search tool was the easiest for you? Which was more confusing? What kind of useful feeds did you find in your travels? Or what kind of unusual ones did you find? What other tools or ways did you find to locate newsfeeds?

Blogline's search tool was my favorite, just because it was right there and easy to use. For those not using Blogline, then I would recommend Technorati or Topix. I liked the tabs in both sites. I also liked that I could get a Florida newspaper for a patron and somebody else got the Press by giving Topix a Toms River location and we got the local news for both sites. Finding newsfeeds was pretty easy for me, since I'm interested in current events and know a lot of sites that can get me news information. I didn't really have the time to go looking for unusual sites, I just went with the tried and true. I did not like Syndic8 because I tried a subject keyword, and got a bunch of sites, one of which hadn't posted anything since around 2002.

Reflections

If I had known about RSS, I would had assumed that it wouldn't be very useful-can information bits equal knowledge? This is a question pundits have been raising for a while now. I understand now what they were talking about, it is possible never to see other things outside of a person's narrow interest. My own take is: there is a place for current and up-to-date information without slogging through unneeded information. I can see many uses-business, travel, keeping up with professional news are a few that come to mind. Newsfeeds are a tool, one of many that can help the life long learner.