An RSS Conversion Story

I just recently started using Google reader. I have easily subscribed to several sites that I have been visiting for several years now. Once I saw how much time I was saving I quickly became a convert.

The true test to see if RSS was truly "really simple" came yesterday. Sure I saw the value in it but would my 65 year old mother. While in a hospital waiting room, my mom started talking about what she had read on blogs of family and friends. I asked her if she visits these blogs only to find that they were not updated. Of course her answer was yes. I knew she was ready for the invitation, "Do you want to see how you can follow blogs and only cheek them when they have been up dated?" For the next hour we found and subscribed to several blogs she enjoyed following (her only concern was that she was going to have to pay for the "subscriptions"). However, I wasn't sure if I was helping her or she was humoring me. Later that day I was showing her a friends Flickr page (http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpn/) and after viewing a few photographs she said, "Can you add that to my reader?" Success! One more convert saved.

Now that I have seen the social benefits it is easy to see what a powerful educational tool Google reader can be. Teacher blogs can be subscribed to by parents and teacher/students can better follow educational sites. Its simplicity makes a universal tool that can be used by grandmothers and grandchildren alike.