CPD23: Thing 4 Deja Vu (RSS Feeds and Pushnote)

This post continues the review of the "Social Awareness" Things that CPD23 asked about this week. In my previous post, I discussed Twitter and how much an integral part of my social and professional networking and news base it has become. Along those lines, Google+ is becoming interesting, although off to a slow start with expectations of integration to already established platforms. I discussed this new social tool last week on the blog, and you can find my Google+ profile if you want to add me or have me add you to a Circle.

However, back to RSS Feeds and Pushnote.

RSS Feeds:

I started using RSS Feeds as different widgets on my iGoogle home page for my browser about three years ago. I had various tabs for the subjects I was following: libraries, book writers and bloggers, gardening, etc. however each widget took up a lot of screen space and I realized I had several tabs to slog through each day. Then I was told about Google Reader, which I still use.

My Google Reader this morning, after initial clean out.

My Google Reader extension in my toolbar.

Google Reader aggregates all subscribed feeds into one location. You can also set up folders by topic to help manage your subscriptions. Since I use Chrome as my browser, I have added an extension that gives me the number of unread posts at Reader throughout the day. I try to skim through first thing in the morning, will star the ones I want to go back for a thorough read or to comment on, then can clear it out by marking the rest as read. Of course, there is always a possibility of missing something along the way.

I try to do a periodic resort and unsubscribe from ones I know I am not really reading on a regular basis. I acquired a book blogger bundle through Stacked and now the participant bundle through CPD23. I opted for the single feed of posts at this point, however it is possible I will grab the individual blog bundle so I can weed out the ones I do and do not want to follow. With over 600 participants, that would be a time-consuming project for another day!

Pushnote:

I have been reading the posts so far on Pushnote and took a look at the site. While I can understand the benefits this would have to someone who may not have such a service currently, I believe I have two or three other services that already do the job for me.

My Chrome extensions, including Save in Delicious (Tag),
Clip to Evernote (elephant), and Google Plus One Button (+1).

In my toolbar I have a few extensions that I use in Chrome, including Save in Delicious, Clip to Evernote and  the new Plus One (+1) button for Google. All three of these work to save webpages and other items of interest for me, either for my own consumption (in the case of Evernote), or that can be accessed publicly through Delicious or my Google Profile. I try not to be indiscriminate about what I post, but highlight things of interest to me and to those I know. Of course, the topics are far-flung from librarianship to gardening to chicken ordinances to ebooks, but still shared for the public.

There are many established social web tools that can be utilized at different levels: personal, professional, privately or publicly. As social interaction becomes as important as productivity online, I think that we will see more and more applications and services developed that recreate the wheel of social networking, while hoping to be "the one".