Blogs, Blogs, Blogs - Not So Simple but Bingo at Last

Time to add some more blogs. I had already added "The Long Nineteenth Century" and Radley College's "Diary of R.C. Singleton" last week when I was getting enthusiastic about blogs!

Zetoc
I had previously subscribed to 15 email alerts from Zetoc so thought I would try and transfer them to RSS feeds. I want to see what the differences are. Mistakenly thought that pressing the RSS button would simply add the feed to my Google Reader but no ... I was offered the option to create a live book mark. Can someone tell me what this and how differs from an RSS feed? Thank goodness for the helpful "how to do" from the 23 Things Team. Their instructions made a potentiality problematic and frustrating situation less so. It was time consuming copying and pasting everything though. I feel academic resources need to embrace the ease of latest technologies that have been quickly embraced by popular culture. Don't know how soon I'll get a feed from these journals probably after this programme has ended!

BBC - History of the World
Decided to add the BBC History of World as the 15 minute slots on Radio 4 which focus on a single physical item from history and concisely describe the object and its significance, provides a thought provoking insight into our material cultural from the earliest times to present. I'd share this with anyone and everyone. Surprisingly, once again there was no handy "add to" functionally. I was disappointed as I expected better of the BBC.

The Oxford English Dictionary
Bingo!!! "The Oxford English Dictionary - Word of Day" has the greatly to be desired "add to" functionallity. The Press has got it just right - providing me with an easy distraction and, the opportunity to astonish and astound the hoi-ploi with my erudite and recondite vocabularly!

Last but not least
Added 23 Things Blog, and marked as a favourite of course! Also subscribed to "College Library Jottings" to show solidarity with my college colleagues.

The Elusive Blog Search
I am not overly impressed with search engines abilities to locate blogs. I think someone has already commented on the inadequacy of the Google blog search. It was nice to know that I had not been entirely stupid when I had not found anything satisfactory.
I decided to explore "Technorati". The search engine was good but was obviously geared to the location of blogs concerned with popular culture. It had a pleasant and attractive interface. I like the way it divides the blogosphere into a hierarchy of mangeable subjects hence: "Entertainment" includes subsections on films, books and celebs whilst, "Living" includes subsections on health and pets. I liked the "Top 100 and "Top10 movers" features. I was surprised not to find any cycling blogs. I am reliably informed by husband there are lots of them - he rattled them off 'till I gave up listening. And as to football - no thanks! As information resource I think"Technorati" could be used to identify trends in popular culture at a given moment - dare I say its fascinating. Technorati I feel provides an effective search tool for blogs concerned with popular culture. The ability to locate blogs in the academic environment seems sadly neglected.


Bingo at Last!
Really pleased to have had the chance to explore RSS aggregators, such Google Reader. No more checking individaul feeds and no more cluttered inbox. The option to manage feeds aids effective and efficient retrieval of my feeds. An ultimate BINGO, I feel