It seems everyone has a list of “blogs of the year” on their sites, and every newspaper and (Times) magazine I read is eager to claim this as the year of the blog. People, you are behind the times! I say it was the year of RSS.
RSS completely changed the way I approached the web. Instead of surfing from site to site, content came to me. I became an efficient consumer of information, reading over 150 sites a day, clipping pieces that were important, sharing pieces when I needed to, and classifing information according to rules that I set. Blogs only allow you create information. RSS puts you in control of it.
So, in honor of RSS, here is my list of the best of the best for 2004:
Best Feed Reader :: Bloglines
They’re constantly improving their service, adding support for Firefox, improving saved links, etc. I’ve tried other readers, but the fact that this one is web based means I can use it anywhere. Love.
Best E-Commerce Feed :: Netflix
Not only can you subscribe to their upcoming releases, but you can get feeds to your rental queue and personal recommendations. It’s outstanding.
Best Utility Feed :: RSS Weather
I get ten updates a day for my zip code! They send me current and projected weather and allow me to customize my feed in Celius or Farenheit, MPH or KPH, etc. Very useful.
Best Photography Site :: Flickr
I stopped using Snapfish, Ofoto and a host of others because of Flickr. I became a photo feed addict because of Flickr. In addition, they have the coolest representation of a taxonomy that I’ve seen anywhere. I heart Flickr.
Best Feed Stats :: FeedBurner
They’re beta, but they’re rockin’.
Best Feed Search :: Feedster
Search, find and then subscribe to the RSS feed on your search!
Best Life-Changing RSS Experience :: Furl
Furl is a web-based bookmarking service, but it also allows you to publish your links to web sites and allows others to subscribe to your links via RSS. There are similar services out there (delicious comes to mind) but I haven’t embraced them this year like I did Furl. Furl inspired me to clean out and consolidate my bookmarks and then share them with the world.
There are so many others, but these are the feeds that changed me from a surfer to a burner in 2004. I can’t wait for 2005!
Addendum :: Even though Fimoculous has a blogs of the year list, he says that it wasn’t the year of the blog but rather the year that blogs matured. I would agree with that assessment.
