Really simple syndication: the new black!

I must admit that before starting this module I was completely oblivious to the wonders of the internet, well I still am ,but at least now I am aware. To me using the internet was going on google typing in random words crossing my fingers and hoping for the best. Now a shiny new world has presented itself to me made of links, operators, personalized news and mostof all RSS, really simple syndication.

How could I have never used it before? It's seriously user friendly, even for wetiots, web-idiots, such as myself and saves you infinite amounts of time. It is mainly used to publish frequently updated works such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, video and is a useful tool for keeping updated on your favorite websites. In order to receive RSS feeds, you must have an aggregator or a feed reader.

I have used google reader for a week now and have decided that is one of the web's must-haves! It's the new black for bloggers. That little thing that never goes out of style and saves your day when you are out of ideas. Exactly like black, if it's your only resource, you will appear quite sad and narrow minded.

picture taken from Google images

The village's Saturday

As part of our online project we participated in a Q&A with outgoing head of editorial development for Guardian.co.uk, Neil McIntosh. Last week he gave us a speech regarding various issues involving online journalism.

Coming home from class one of the first thoughts to cross my mind was a famous Italian poem by Giacomo Leopardi; it's called "Il Sabato del Villaggio", the village's Saturday. It narrates the lives of the inhabitants of a small village in northern Italy while preparing a Saturday feast. The days go by and the excitement rises as the villagers terminate their activities. On Friday night the whole village is in ferment. Than Saturday arrives, but the so longed for feast reveals itself adisappointment, leaving the inhabitants melancholic and disillusioned.

Now, this poem refers to the expectations that young people have which are brutally defeated during by the years, hence clearly quite an exaggerated metaphor, but it does have a point. I had exceedingly high expectations about what he would say. I was disappointed and wrote a crappy news story. As a journalist and guardian reader, the idea of working for a major influential newspaper has always thrilled me, and when Jim told us about this Q&A i was well excited. Of course i knew he was not going to reveal any piece of breaking news, but come on the outgoing head of editorial development for Guardian.co.uk, how cool is that?, yes, I'm aware I'm a geek, came to terms with that long time ago.


Neil McIntosh Westminster Uni Visit 20/11/08 - Part 2 from Jim McClellan on Vimeo.



Instead the whole thing revealed itself to be quite disappointing and dull. He discussed mostly quite obvious things and even the couple of usable quotes he gave us weren't that interesting in the end. I mean maybe my expectations were to high or simply we didn't ask the right questions, still i kind of expected a little more.

Anyways I learned to collaborate with my journalist colleagues to write a news story even when the news or the story aren't there. Always useful . Most important I remembered that being a journalist won't always be exciting and creative, but you have to work with what you've got, which lots of times is even less than a not so interesting Q&A.