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One could make a very good argument that the driving force behind the whole Web 2.0 wave is RSS. The format has made possible blogs, podcasts, “fill-in-the-blank”-casts and, of course, news feeds.
It is in this area of news feeds that most people probably interact with RSS. Go to a blog or news site that you like and with one click you can subscribe to its feed and get an update whenever new content is added. In the early days (like two years ago), dedicated feed reading applications were required, but now people can easily subscribe, read and manage feeds in their choice of browser, e-mail application or hosted Web service.
But I have a question for all of you out there. Are you still reading feeds in this manner? Is it the main way that you consume information? Because, at least anecdotally, I’m hearing from a lot of technology users who are leaving their feed readers behind. People who have found that it has become too much work to parse through all the feeds that they receive and have gone back to traditional methods of staying current, such as simply making regular visits to Web sites that they track.
I know it may seem a little strange to ask this question on a site powered by a blogging engine and that has an RSS feed all ready for you to subscribe to, but, here goes. Are you still using some form of RSS feed reader as your main method of getting news and information? I know in my case, after an initial enthusiasm for feeds, I’m giving most of my feed readers little attention now.
Comment here and let me know how you use, or don’t use, RSS feeds.