Week 4, #9 Exercise

I have to say I wasn't impressed with any of the feed finders listed in the exercise. I found them slow to load, clunky, and many times inaccurate. Several times, I found myself directed to fake blogs that were actually advertisements for insurance or marital aids. I didn't find any useful feeds.



As an experiment, I ran the same subject headings through Google with the tag "RSS feed" and VIOLA I found everything I was searching for and more. Proof that Google rules the world (and I have stock in it!). Google recently bought FeedBurner which many people use to drive traffic to their blog, podcast, etc. Within the next few months, I think all the other competitors will whither as Google expands its realm into the RSS feed world.

Online Safety

The truth is your information is out there and if someone is internet savvy, they can find it. I've been on the internet since the days of BBS (Bulletin Board Systems) and even I'm shocked that I've let information slip.



For example, Google your home phone number. If you have a land line, you are probably going to find your address, a Google map to your house, and even a nice photo. The good news is that you can contact Google to have it removed. They removed my information within 24 hours.



The bad news is nothing ever really disappears from the internet. In fact, there is a movement toward internet archiving. Check out http://www.archive.org/index.php. Ever had a website that you loved, but it went belly up? If you still have the URL, you might be able to find it here.



I know this sounds dirty but I think it's a good idea to google yourself everyone once in a while.