For the 5th entry in my blog series on Web 2.0 Technology Topics, I turn to web feed readers. Feed readers are software that resides either on your personal computer (Mac, Windows, Linux) or on a web server and allow you to collect content from a variety of different websites into one single place.
A Feed Reader is a really powerful and important tool in my arsenal as a "Web 2.0 citizen." As the breadth and depth of content/people with which I engage grows, it becomes overwhelming to follow by checking each website. Even if I could get email notices, that pummel my email inbox, which I try to preserve for emails specifically to me from colleagues, friends and family.
Moreover, as I have gained experienced at following web feeds, I have found that I read them differently than I read email. With email, I try to read, respond and then file or delete from my inbox. With feed entries, I scan and highlight the important ones, as you see in the graphic below. Then, I often come back to the highlighted ones again and again as other events trigger me to remember them. Usually, I do NOT delete entries from my web feeds, since it provides a great way for me to search MY private universe of web content for something that I remember reading, but I don't remember where.
One way to think about Feed Reader technology is client-based vs. server-based. Client-based software, like RSSOwl (snapshot above) or MS Outlook gathers feeds for individuals and allows you to read them even when you're offline. Web-based services, like Google Reader, NetVibes and many web applications act as an aggregator for individuals or groups. This is like the example in my last article, where the Newton PTO Council could page that aggregates news and announcements from all 21 PTOs automatically. For an (extreme) example from an individual perspective, watch the video in Doing the (Feed Read) Shuffle. This Google Reader Blog entry shows how Robert Scoble, a well-respected blogger, tracks over 600 web feeds!
One last note: Most readers provide an easy way for you to export a collection of feeds from one reader to another. This is done using a file standard known as OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language), an XML format for outlines. OPML was originally for other purposes, but is now commonly used to exchange lists of web feeds between web feed aggregators.
