They can't all be the best thing since sliced bread, I guess.
I can see specific uses for certain RSS feeds. But as far as setting up a reader and subscribing to dozens (or hundreds)... I don't really get the appeal. It would be handy if you're trying to keep up with a zillion blogs, I suppose, but then you're only getting the text, not the full experience of being at the web page. It reminds me of subscribing to too many magazines (the paper kind, that come in the U.S. Mail), then not having time to read any of them, or only flipping through at warp speed before tossing them in the trash.
As for Flickr, it's like being held hostage by a bunch of distant relatives, all of whom want you to look at their vacation pictures. All 200,000 of them. I'm not a big picture taker, and the pictures I do take are for me, not for the other 6.5 billion people on the planet.
Neither of those hold a candle to the biggest time-waster I've seen on the web yet (yes, that includes the hamsterdance and Runescape), Twitter. The name is perfect, except they forgot half of it-- it should be Twitterpated. Does the entire world besides me have too much free time?
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I use my RSS reader (Bloglines) to keep track of library blogs I like, plus fun stuff like Unshelved :) and Savage Chickens. If I get too much stuff and too little time, I just mark everything read and start over. Much easier than sorting through magazines! :)
Also, the thing about Flickr is you can be contacts with whomever you like. You can easily see when they've updated their photos and you can look at some, or all, or none.
I also think it's cool that if you want, you can upload all your photos to Flickr but keep them all private. That way you don't have to share them, but you can have them backed up online, plus easily searchable.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
I'm not saying Flickr isn't good, it's just of little/no use to me. The people I'd want to share with don't have computers.
As for RSS readers-- I'd rather have fun stuff like Unshelved sent to me via e-mail. If I have to visit a reader to see it, I may as well go to the Unshelved site to read it.
Same with blog posts-- I'd rather have the ability to subscribe to threads (like on message boards) and have them go to my e-mail.
I'm a big fan of context, and RSS readers are, of necessity, stripping that away.
I'm a Flickr addict. But then I'm an exhibitionist, so I guess that makes sense. ;)
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