Getting with the times

I joined gmail 4 years ago, back when you had to be "invited" by a friend... and yes, I did feel pretty special, pretty "in the know." And while I tell all my friends to join gmail, I am still learning about the ins-and-outs of the services that google provides.

In recent months I discovered blogger/blogspot. I'm not much of a blogger myself, but set one up anyhow in case I was ever struck with inspiration. I began "following" just my friends or friends of friends who have blogs. This list has since expanded. While I don't actively browse for blogs, every once in awhile, via a link from another site, or a recommendation from a friend, I come across someone who has unique perspectives, is eloquent with their words, or is simply entertaining. It would be easy if everyone was on blogspot, but they're not, and I was quickly discovering that any enjoyment I might get from reading the words of others wasn't worth the time it took to visit all the different pages checking for updates.

But about 3 days ago, this issue was remedied... unintentionally.

Though I had noticed this button in the past, sometimes with the acronym rss next to it, I never knew what it was. On Saturday, I got the urge to press it. In doing so I was automatically directed to my Google Reader page - something else I had not fully explored. For those who are as out of the loop as I am, the rss/reader basically allows you to view the updates of your favorite websites in one spot. Read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(file_format) (Yes, my stickler friends, I know this is a wikipedia reference. But it should suffice.)

Anyways, I can now see all the updated posts from the various blogs/web pages to which I subscribe. If you don't know about this feature, or don't use it, you should. Apparently other companies like Yahoo also provide the reader - Who knew?

Some might call me out of touch, others might call me nerdy, but either way I think it's pretty cool!