Chapter 6: In which the Pirates blunder through more RSS feeds

Wow, two negative(ish) posts in a row! I feel like such a sour-puss!

The more I use Bloglines and browse through RSS feeds, the less I understand their point. So far the only valid reason I've found to use RSS feeds are on mobile phones and the like. My PSP can load websites without too much difficulty, but often times on larger sites runs out of memory. The same is true with mobile phones, often times they have a hard time displaying an entire website without choking. RSS feeds solve this by reducing the amount of memory-heavy content like ads and images. But for your average user, whats wrong with just browsing the website?

Anyways, on to Exercise #8!

My first task was to use one of the provided RSS search tools to add two more feeds to my Bloglines account. Using Syndic8, I was able to locate feeds for Woot.com and Slickdeals.net, however I ended up having to search for their specific name (instead of web deals, deals, etc.) in order to find them. If you're looking for a very general topic, I don't think Syndic8 is the best way to go, because there are so many feeds it can list for any search you may think of. For my part, I would say it is much quicker to find the RSS feeds through your favorite websites, instead of using a search tool to locate them.

I also tried using Feedster and Topix.net to search for two Library-related feeds, and found both inadequate for the job. Without spending too much time on either one, I felt there wasn't a good way right off the bat to narrow your searches. A simple search for libraries located the word libraries in just about every feed imaginable. Any time any article, blog, or website mentioned the word libraries, it caught it and submitted it as a result.

Perhaps I'm just an old fuddy-duddy who yerns for the days of HTML-based Geocities websites with MIDI music in the background, spinning skulls and blinking lights all over the site, and a background that stays put while content scrolls over it. This RSS stuff is too new-fangled for my tastes!