5 things I would not have achieved without RSS feeds

Believe it or not, there came a period when I kept thinking "the web sucks, there’s nothing to do, nothing to read, nothing to watch!". I would launch the browser, and stare for a while in the blank white canvas, thinking: "so now what?". I had no good use of the web except for emails and chatting.

That was between 2004 and early 2006. Sometime mid 2006, I discovered something that would make a bigger impact in my life than anything I’ve ever tried before!

That thing was Netvibes; a wonderful online service that puts everything you’d ever want to do on the web in a single customizable page. The odd thing is, nowadays, I don’t use Netvibes (for some reason). However, credit goes to Netvibes for introducing me to the wonderful world of really simple sex syndication, otherwise known as RSS feeds (click here if you don’t already know what that is).

So I went ahead and gave it a shot. I added some preset feeds for popular sites and later discovered some more on my own, such as LifeHacker.

Fast forward to this day: I am one hell of an RSS addict who realized so many benefits from using RSS that I can’t even count. However, it occurred to me yesterday why not think of the top 5 things you achieved by using RSS?

So here they are. While reading this, try to think of things you achieved by using RSS and share them in the comments section.

1) Realize my career passion

Since I got my undergraduate CS degree in 2004, I’ve been trying out so many things in hope of discovering that one true passion that would shape up the rest of my career. I started with web development, moved to system analysis, contemplated software engineering, project management, and even business administration. However, I never really felt at heart that any of those is what I’m meant to do.

That was until one day I discovered a blog about software development called Joel on Software. Amongst many things, Joel writes about elements of interface design and human factors that I found immediately fascinating.

Long story short, I began exploring more in this field by subscribing to dozen blogs that explore software usability. The more I read about it, the more I realized I’m meant to do this.

Right now, I’m preparing for a masters degree in Human-Computer Interaction and, moreover, I’m launching a dedicated blog that talks about this stuff (stay tuned!).

2) Learn about wonders of Web 2.0

Netvibes takes the credit here too. What I have seen after Netvibes were a bunch of similar sites (Pageflakes, YourMinis, etc) that had something in common. That thing was elements of Web 2.0, so I set out to find out what this term I kept hearing about.

Fast forward April 15 2007, I gave my first ever public speech about Web 2.0, which has now become yet another passion of mine, all because of the many blogs I subscribed to that that explore this topic in depth (e.g., Read/Write Web).

3) Develop my presentation skills

Readers of this blog know that I have an inexplicable love for public speaking ever since college. Again, with RSS, I wanted to take this to the next level by learning how to be professional speaker. Many blogs offer wealth of information in this regard, most notably Presentation Zen. One of my career goals is to be a renowned public speaker in what I do.

4) Learn about blogging and starting my own blog

Before this blog, I had this cheesy creepy site that I spent about a month coding. It was what they call "Web 1.0"ish. It had this god-forbidden guest book like the old days. It was basically a piece of crap.

Then I learned about blogs and blogging as a consequence of using RSS. Beginning 2007, I started this blog to be the place where I write about things that are interesting enough to share with the rest of the world. Furthermore, I subscribed to dozen blogs that teach the art of blogging, most notably Daily Blogs Tips.

5) Enhance my writing skills

When you start such a venture as a blog, your success depends, among other things, on how good a writer you are. You learn to write in order to capture attention and present worthwhile content. That’s exactly what happened with me. Of course, I have not developed my skills out of thin air. Again, I’ve subscribed to many blogs that offer tremendous insight into proper copywriting, such as ProBlogger and Copyblogger.

Conclusion

I guess the point of all of this is to prove that if you’re not using RSS, then you’re likely missing out on a lot of good stuff. I may be an extreme example, having more than 100 subscriptions in my news reader of choice, Google Reader. However, you can subscribe to only dozen sites and still manage to keep up with them on regular basis. This will not just save you time, it’d open your mind to bigger realm of possibilities!

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