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5 Reasons Why Feed Readers Still Rock
From Read/Write Web.
I just still feel like I’m missing something. I can’t get past the fact that Twitter is not a feed reader, yet people insist on using it as one. I mean, if I were following all the people whose feeds I read on Twitter instead of using Google Reader, I don’t feel like I would see even half the posts that I do now. Granted, I skip over half of them anyway, but at least I know that I’m consciously skipping things I don’t want to see instead of just losing them to a Devil’s Kettle whirlpool of information.
Here’s the Top 5 Reasons I Still Use An RSS Reader:
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Do I Lose Geek Points Because I Don’t Like Real Time Communication?
I tried making this into a Facebook Status Update but it kept trying to expand itself into something more. So, here we are.
The beginning goes: Do I lose geek points because I don’t like real-time communication?
Of course, my friends on Facebook would need some explanation because most of them aren’t anywhere close to as geeky as I am… and I didn’t feel like trying to cram it all in to the Facebook character count. And even if I did post it on Facebook, well, how many people are going to see it? And there in lies the first crux of the post. The second crux is that I don’t like (and I’m sure many people can relate to this) the Information Overload that comes with real time communications.
First Crux
When you have something like Facebook that currently shows either a) everything all your friends have posted, or b) an algorithmically selected subset of the firehose, well, most people are going to opt for the second because trying to look at everything is pretty much impossible (especially without an RSS feed – even if most people still don’t know what RSS actually is).
Second Crux
Have you ever tried to follow your Facebook feed (or Twitter Stream) in real-time? It’s like watching a TV show that you really want to be good, but is mostly just crap punctuated by a good moment every once in a while. Me, I don’t watch TV shows like that. I want ones that are good all the time. Or, I want to be able to speed through the parts that suck, to read (and respond to) the parts that are actually funny/fascinating. Maybe it’s fun to watch, say, on Christmas or New Year’s Eve when all your friends are updating with what they’re doing. But then, guess what? Your status update becomes: I’m watching my real-time Facebook feed, because you guys are doing cool stuff and I’m sitting in front of my computer. Awesome.
Facebook may end my run as the World’s Greatest Copycheater
Not only can you now use the Lite Facebook Interface – i.e., the Twitter Facebook Interface – but Facebook is also said to be (slowly) rolling out @ tagging of people in Status Updates. I actually posted a Status Update a while back pondering if Facebook were to add that feature, thereby eliminating my need to ever use Twitter again. And now my dream (yes, it’s a pretty lame dream) has come true. Now I can just use Facebook for my “mass” communications until I’m famous enough that thousands of random people will want to read my thoughts 140 characters at a time. (Or they could just read my blog, I suppose)
Nels Wadycki 