MERLIN and Library-Related Blogs and Feeds

Hm. I think I ended up lumping all of this into thing 8 by accident because I already explored the feed search engines and news feeds when I created my Bloglines account, and I discussed a lot of how I felt regarding the usefulness and the ease of finding new feeds to subscribe to in that previous entry.

However, I did have an interesting experience looking through the gaming, avatars, and virtual worlds link. Am I the only person who finds the concept of Second Life disturbing in the extreme? My real life is complicated enough; why would I want the added responsibility of trying to maintain a second me somewhere else. Who wants to play a game in which you have to go to work? If I were going to create a fake self, all I'd want to do with my fake self was sit on the beach listening to music, sipping margaritas, and reading books all day. I wouldn't be going to the library to research jobs or other things...that's a real life activity. I also have a major problem with the fact that people are spending real money to purchase fake places. It just seems mind-bogglingly scary. I'm a pretty big internet addict, but even I have to raise my eyebrows when I look at Second Life and go...wow, don't you people have anything better to do with your time? Wouldn't your effort be better spent trying to improve your REAL life? Creepy.

I also made a Meez because I think avatar generators are fun. I'm not adhering to library dress code in this one, so I guess we'll have to assume this is Patron Shannon instead of Librarian Shannon:

RSS Feeds and Bloglines

This week's activity involving RSS feeds and feed readers was really informative for me. I troll around the internet all the time, but I've never experimented with either of these features in the past. I'm not sure exactly how I feel about Bloglines. I know that I think RSS feeds are amazingly handy when you want to collect information in an easy-to-read format, and I think that Bloglines is a fantastic concept with a useful purpose, but it's so clunky.

I found myself clicking all around Bloglines trying to find the best way of navigating it because there was just...so much there. I'm not sure I ever really discovered the most effective way to search for RSS feeds on the site; I bumbled around awkwardly and gravitated toward lists like the 200 Most Popular Feeds. Overall, it seemed as though the website was too dense with links and tabs and information; even for someone as familiar with the internet and technology as I am, I sometimes spent several minutes trying to figure out exactly what I was doing. I found it easier to go to the website, copy the address and paste it into the feed reader than to search for feeds on Bloglines. The feed search engines, the names of which now escape me, were also handy. My frustration with the Bloglines site could be because I'm unfamiliar with the service, but at the same time, it should be sort of user-friendly for all the newcomers to the website, particularly if RSS Feeds are gaining in popularity and being exposed to a lot of new users.

I set up a Bloglines account, and I love all the feeds I signed up for, but I'm wondering how often I'm actually going to use it. Perhaps if I'm having a slow morning on the desk, I might pop over to check on what's new, but for the most part, it seems...extraneous for me. I'm not a habitual blog reader, so I don't really have a problem checking the few sites I keep up with on a regular basis. Not only that, I use Google Alerts, which allows me to have weekly, daily, or up-to-the-minute updates on any topic sent right to my email inbox. I have them set up for several different topics, and once a day, I get a few comprehensive newsletters with abstracts and links to articles dealing with the subjects for which I've set up alerts. It's fast and easy and thorough, and it doesn't require any extra accounts or clients anywhere to use it. All you need is your regular email address. It's still in its beta testing phase right now, but it works like a dream.

Overall, I guess Bloglines is cool; RSS feeds are definitely handy. I'm just not sure how much I'll actually use it. If I were more of a newshound, I would find the service wildly useful and to be a huge timesaver, but for someone who is only a sometime-blog follower, I don't see it becoming a staple in my technological diet.