Thing #3: RSS feeds

Thing 3 involves setting up a Google Reader and subscribing to some feeds.  As stated in my previous posts I use Google Reader and have it as a gadget in my iGoogle page (2 "Things" rolled into one all-singing Google-shaped Thing).  I check this in the morning as I would do my email, picking up snippets of information from the library and information world and gathering ideas from other blogs for use on my blogs.  Having new posts fed straight into my online desktop increases the chances of my reading those blogs and their resultant posts almost 100%.  Since having a feed reader blogs have become one of my main sources of information-gathering, pre-feedreader blogs were just something out on the web that other people wrote, read and commented upon.  I haven't yet found my subscription of blogs unmanageable or overwhelming so never had to succumb to my librarian instinct to organise into folders, tag and categorise, even though Google reader makes it very easy to do so.  Also this is partly because I suspect I will create a folder which to all intents and purposes should be named "I will never read these blogs" and the slightly less exciting ones will be hidden here, unloved, despite probably having the occasional useful posts. 

I have however created a folder for the University of Westminster 23 things participant blogs (from the list here).  Having subscribed to them all individually on my Google Reader I knew that somehow there must be a quicker way to subscribe to them all in one go; I ask and Google provides.  Having created my folder containing the wmin 23 things blogs I was able to create a bundle from this folder.  A bundle allows you to group together a collection of blogs (and/or webpages), allowing anyone to subscribe to updates from the whole collection in one click of a button.  The bundle can be shared via email, or added via a link or widget on your webpage/ blog (as I have done- see right hand menu bar of this blog).  A quick and easy way to collate information and share it. 

Having finished bundling I haven't yet finished thing 3, which is to reflect on something I have read from my Google Reader subscriptions, so that and the summary of thing 3 I will leave till my next post........ 

Photo: Blackberry picking in Northamptonshire taken by Ellie.