02315: The RSS Experience


When Google Reader folded 3 years ago, a major daily routine was disrupted with the loss of my favorite RSS Reader. Sure different apps had offered alternate solutions, but my primary RSS behavior involved me at a desktop computer and not everything was totally great for that. So after a period of evaluation I signed up for NewsBlur's paid service and it has been pretty good since then.

Admittedly my NewsBlur use dipped ever since I left the BPO industry to work with Hashtag as my days are a lot busier  than they used to be. But I just can't quite get around to quitting the whole RSS consumption process just yet so every now and then I attack my feeds, process and clear updates and see what I may have missed. It's still a pretty enjoyable experience for me.

Oddly enough, I still prefer to visit news sites individually as opposed to hooking into their RSS feeds since it always feels like there's too much noise. I still  have a few Google Alerts setup to ping me for this or that, but admittedly I barely process those emails on a regular basis.

RSS may seem a little backwards now as people mostly rely on social media to bring links to interest to their attention and services like Google Now try to offer content of interest as related to your searches and recent Chrome activity (I suspect) but it's not quite the same thing.

So yes, it's 2016 and I'm still the sort of dinosaur who uses an RSS reader. And I'm still proud to be one.

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