KINGSTON, Penn. - People everywhere want to be able to access stories from their favorite websites at the click of a button. RSS Feeds (Rich Site Summary), a format for delivering regularly changing web content, allows people to stay easily informed by retrieving the latest content from the sites of interest. You save time by not needing to visit each site individually.
RSS Feeds were developed in March 1999 by Netscape. Their purpose is to summarize news from websites that are regularly updated. Often, web logs, news-related sites, and other online publishers have their content as an RSS Feed for people who are interested in accessing news from that site at any time. According to Connor Scalleat, Editor and Site Engineer of T3CH H3LP, he believes that "RSS posts really revolutionize the way we can connect and obtain our media. With RSS readers serving our content in extremely dynamic and interactive ways, it changes the way we think of internet media. They allow me to instead of visiting 7 sites to find articles I want, I just need to open one reader to get article summaries, comments, sharing options, and much much more."
Netscape, the founder of the RSS feeds, developed the system because they "wanted to use an XML Extensible Markup Language [XML] format to distribute news, stories and information." The first successful version of RSS feeds was developed on March 15, 1999, and then the second worthy update was published on Aug. 14, 2000.
RSS Feeds are most commonly used by numerous types of news organizations, such as The New York Times and CNN. Mrs. Courtney Lewis, head librarian at Wyoming Seminary Upper School, uses RSS feeds to subscribe to over 300 blogs in different categories such as specific authors, major organizations in her profession, blogs of fellow faculty members, technology, and other blogs that are relevant to her hobbies. She states that using RSS feeds allows her to access things that are of interest more openly and easily, and is able to better organize and manage information that is important to her.
RSS feeds are used with readers, such as Google Reader. The program will grab articles from websites of your interest that are relevant to your passions. The simpler really is the better.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Too Much Information
Facebook gives people of all ages an avenue to publicize one's private life for the entire Social Networking community to see. Through statuses, relationship changes, and wall posts, others are able to access information about people that would otherwise be left unknown.
Created and launched in February 2004 by Harvard students Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes, the site began as a network strictly for Harvard University. Two months later, the site expanded to include other Ivy League schools. After that, the college network slowly grew and by the end of 2004, Facebook had registered more than one million users. Today, there are more than 500 million users who combine to spend a total of 700 billion minutes per month on the social networking sight.
What really is the purpose of Facebook? It seems as if it's for a person's privacy, well, to not be so private. According to one of the creators, Mark Zuckerberg, in a press conference at TechCrunch, "People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time." To him, sharing information is the popular trend.
For others, yes it's popular, but it is viewed as giving an excess amount of information. According to Mary Thede, 17, and a member of the Wyoming Seminary Class of 2011, stated, "People's statuses and wall posts on Facebook have reached a point where you're knowing a person's day to day routine from morning to night. You know what's going on in someone's relationship as well as in school. It's TMI (too much information), and personally, I don't care. People need to learn what is appropriate for the public eye."
Facebook is a great invention that allows people to communicate with others from all over the world. But the next time you feel the urge to tell everyone the details of your love life, please ask yourself, "Do I really want all 800 of my friends to know this?"
Created and launched in February 2004 by Harvard students Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes, the site began as a network strictly for Harvard University. Two months later, the site expanded to include other Ivy League schools. After that, the college network slowly grew and by the end of 2004, Facebook had registered more than one million users. Today, there are more than 500 million users who combine to spend a total of 700 billion minutes per month on the social networking sight.
What really is the purpose of Facebook? It seems as if it's for a person's privacy, well, to not be so private. According to one of the creators, Mark Zuckerberg, in a press conference at TechCrunch, "People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time." To him, sharing information is the popular trend.
For others, yes it's popular, but it is viewed as giving an excess amount of information. According to Mary Thede, 17, and a member of the Wyoming Seminary Class of 2011, stated, "People's statuses and wall posts on Facebook have reached a point where you're knowing a person's day to day routine from morning to night. You know what's going on in someone's relationship as well as in school. It's TMI (too much information), and personally, I don't care. People need to learn what is appropriate for the public eye."
Facebook is a great invention that allows people to communicate with others from all over the world. But the next time you feel the urge to tell everyone the details of your love life, please ask yourself, "Do I really want all 800 of my friends to know this?"
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
True Voice Trumps All
Blogging is a form of expression that gives people the opportunity to express oneself freely and openly. We currently live in a world where most opinions are not valued, and as a result, people are tentative to truly voice their views on specific issues or ideas, especially on television, in the newspapers, and on the radio. People venture to blogging as a outlet to release their beliefs without using a filter or worrying about how others might judge. It is with blogging where a person's true voice is identified and where one is able to be true to his/herself. This ability of blogging to emphasize true ideas and true opinions is what makes it so popular, beneficial, and essential to everyday life.
Remember the movie, Julie & Julia? Check out the real life Julie Powell's blog to get a first hand look of how true blogging really is. Click here to view the Julie/Julia Project blog.
Remember the movie, Julie & Julia? Check out the real life Julie Powell's blog to get a first hand look of how true blogging really is. Click here to view the Julie/Julia Project blog.
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