I am a regular reader of quite a few library-related blogs, as well as some non-library blogs. I link to a bunch of them on the right. I find that reading the blogs is a great way to keep up with what's happening in the library world and technology, and I've learned so much that I never would have come across otherwise. It's great to read the paper publications (Public Libraries especially!), but nothing beats the up-to-the-instant reporting and response time of the many librarian bloggers out there.
I had tried Bloglines back in library school but never really kept up with it. Now I use Google Reader, along with the whole suite of Google services I use regularly (privacy be damned, I suppose), and I like it. Although subscribing to RSS feeds with an aggregator means you miss out on the visual experience of each individual blog's own site, but the convenience of having all your faves in one place far outweighs that.
As I've subscribed to various feeds, I noticed that there are different types of RSS feeds, and some sites have as many as three options for the type of feed one can subscribe to--there's RSS 1.0, RSS 0.92, RSS 2.0, XML, Atom.... I dug around for some answers, and the short answer seems to be that feeds have evolved along with other web technology over time. The newer options (RSS 2.0 and Atom), support different types of "payload," which as I understand it, basically means that they can handle more advanced pieces of technology like embedded podcasts and HTML, as well as prescribing various levels of standardization. How's that for a short answer?
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2 comments:
I love that Image!
And thanks for doing all the spade work. Can I assume Google reader handles all the possible technologies?
That's a long list of links; I'm going to have to check out some of them out! It's always interesting to see what others are reading...
Vanessa
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