Use RSS Feeds. They will save your life – metaphorically speaking.
I used to do this: check friend’s site, no updates; check the local Internet gaming team’s site, no updates; check to see if any friends have recently posted any photos, no updates. If you left your computer dormant for a half an hour there was a chance you were missing out. It seems I wasn’t and some would tell me to get more interesting friends! But I’m loyal so I wouldn’t follow that advice.
So the question is how do you stay current with all the websites you follow when you don’t want to waste your time online? This is where an RSS feed comes in.
I believe an RSS feed to be one of the most convenient things on the Internet. Currently, it is the standard service offered on news sites and blog sites. Look for the RSS icon (beside this paragraph) and if it’s there you can subscribe to the feed. Using Google Reader or an e-mail client with RSS capability (like Thunderbird or Office 2007), you can monitor any number of sites for updates from one location. If you’re using an e-mail client you will get individual updates that look like e-mails in a separate RSS folder. If you’re using something like Google Reader you will see updates beside the respective site in the side left pane. Either way, it’s much easier than checking in on your friends or your favourite websites over and over again.
A final element that I love are blogs that have RSS feeds in the sidebars. If you have a blog, you can use the RSS feed to actually feed content to your side bars that is live and up to date; no tedious updating or keeping track of developing articles and changing things manually yourself. Set up convenient RSS feeds on your site for your readers or even yourself, so you can keep one centralized spot to get everything you need while creating your own content. My web bookmarks at the top right of this site are just one example.
