elearnspace

Google has started offering RSS feeds for users of Google personalized. It reminds me of a Microsoft product I saw years ago titled dashboard. It treated various information sources as web objects that could be implemented into the page, allowing users to aggregate information of interest. It was quite clunky. The Google interface is simple and clean. The process of adding an RSS feed is simple as well, though adding many to this page would make for a complicated display. RSS for the masses will not come through Bloglines or Technorati. That will remain the interest of more devoted RSS readers. Most people don’t care what RSS is…and probably will never want a definition of what it is…they simply want the benefits of what it does. I remember reading the initial magazines extolling the value of MS Windows. True diehards still liked their DOS line commands. Newcomers (the vast majority of computer users) wanted something simple. In a similar sense, Google is beginning to rewrite how information is shared, and they are focusing on the emerging market of new users (much like Microsoft did with Windows). While Google’s mission is stated as “organizing the world’s information”, they are getting more interested in also organizing how the world’s information flows…