In the past I have preached the benefits of using RSS to organize your daily Internet reading. A few months ago, Andrei Petrik wrote a great article titled “RSS Not Dead” and I was a strong supporter of his position. Oh how times have changed for me! I sit here staring at Google Reader for the first time in over a month with 5000+ items to read. Does this mean that I have missed the boat on many great articles? I am sure that I have, but as I get busier with work I have been using Twitter as a filter for my information intake.
Again, I am sure that I am missing quality articles, but I have found that the individuals and organizations that I follow on Twitter generally provide me with the cream of the crop. I have also found myself spending extended periods of time on new-to-me websites, masked by various URL-shorteners, that I would have previously passed aside.
Is RSS dead? Hardly. Has Twitter changed the way articles are shared? Absolutely!
I agree with you, RSS still has it’s value. I use Netnewswire myself on weekends to catch up on any missed RSS. During weekdays I follow your approach and read what’s getting tweeted around, using it almost as a quality filter.
Mattias, thank you for sharing. There are a few blogs that I also catch up on at various times so that is a great approach. It is great to be able to take advantage of using similarly-minded people as a news filter. Oh the power of social media!