Well…to keep it all in one spot and so I remember to check them, I’ve used the RSS feeder in Outlook for my work-related RSS feeds in the past. I have a very small handful of feeds that I signed up for when I was first exploring RSS feeds and haven’t gone looking for more. From what I’ve seen…the Outlook reader is pretty basic and I could do more with some of the online readers in terms of organizing the feeds. I’ve only been using them for awhile and I’ve already learned that you should only stay subscribed to the feed if it keeps your interest…otherwise you are just “marking all as read” or looking at checking your feeds as a tedious chore rather than an enjoyable chance to stay up-to-date.
For the assignment, I signed up for Google Reader. I already use iGoogle occasionally, so it seemed to make more sense to sign up for the sibling product where I might be slightly familiar with the language and layout. It was VERY easy to set up, which is lovely…and it was also easy to add to my iGoogle page so that I will be reminded to check my feeds with a tool I already use…which brings us full circle to why I use Outlook…
My unintended lesson is that there is more to learn. I need to rock myself out of my rut of using the basic elements of these tools so that I can get the most from them. I need to go play more with RSS feeds…I need to get myself overwhelmed with feeds to push myself to learning how to manage them better…rather than just reading them like emails.
