I have absolutely no clue what RSS is, other than seeing it mentioned on various blogs and even here at work. But, I'm always afraid to admit to my ignorance because everyone else is so up on it and I'll look like an idiot of a Luddite (which I apparently am, since I don't have an MP3 player, digital camera, or a cell phone that does anything other than make phone calls for which I have to refer to my instruction book every time I need to retrieve a message).

Technical question which belongs outside of Buffistechnology: How many of you who don't consider yourselves computer geeks know what RSS is and use it at least once a week? If you use a feed in LJ, this may be you.

Did you mean use an RSS to get information fed to me, or being the person on the other end of the RSS feed?

If you meant the latter, I take back my hand raise.

How many of you who don't consider yourselves computer geeks know what RSS is and use it at least once a week?

Me.

Wait, I do consider myself a computer geek. Never mind....

Also, bon bon is totally right about the productive timewasting.

I am so not geeky (for example, I was not online much until the late 1990s, and didn't have the internet at home until 2001) and I use RSS feeds like whoa. But I only started to a few months ago. But now I subscribe to a blog about RSS feeds (in libraries, for work) via an RSS feed!

I was briefly a mostly-lurker in a community that was very Buffistas-esque. It was a list-serv on yahoogroups, about the Lord Peter Wimsey novels, and they ended up developing a 'natter' list-serv called Piffle, and a beloved member from Holland did a US tour, and anybody going to the UK would make arrangements to meet up in Oxford pubs. And they all loved Georgette Heyer and Bujold and used punctuation, although the average age was rather older and the tenor even more librarianesque than here. But I hated the list-serv format, so I left. (It still exists, though. They've been around a long time and have had older members, and so they've had members actually die (as opposed to pseudiciding.) They retire the noms de list of the deceased.)

Ah, petty revenge. Today I got the joy of trying to sleep through power tools as workmen started removing my fire escape at 8 am, and then left for lunch to discover a memo (that had been posted since I returned from dinner last night) informing us that HVAC workers would be entering all our apartments between 10 and 2. Gee, thanks for the advance notice.

I don't think they appreciated the Oreo cookie jingle set on max volume continuous loop, since my computer had been shut off when I returned home this evening.

I use bloglines, if that is what you mean.

Yerp. In my nostalgia wandering a moment ago I found an article explaining why RSS isn't popular, and it seemed very doomsaying to me. It basically stated that only geeks use it. I'd say most posters here are computer-savvy, but it's by no means a requirement, and figure we're also perfect RSS targets, given the right interface.

LJ is one that makes it easy to use a feed without even understanding you're doing it. Bloglines means you've sipped at the Kool Aid, but you're hardly mixing up your own jug.

So, Lee, you're exactly it too.

I have a massive amount of subs in Bloglines, all waiting to carry me through a bored moment. But I notice that some sites that say they provide RSS content don't seem to do anything useful. My "Comic strip" folder can go days and days without activity, though it contains Girl Genius and Questionable Content. Tech and Comics, OTOH are filled right up, as is Gossip.

Interfaces matter. Opera's newsgroup reader handles RSS when you click on an RSS link, but it's icky and I prefer Bloglines by far. And LJ for anything kinda low-volume that I want to see every day.

I need to check my hit stats for my RSS provocateuse feed.

Sarameg, was it worth being nervous about?

I have a massive amount of subs in Bloglines, all waiting to carry me through a bored moment.

Me too. If you consider 65 to be massive.

My "Comic strip" folder can go days and days without activity, though it contains Girl Genius and Questionable Content. Tech and Comics, OTOH are filled right up, as is Gossip.

I get the Questionable Content feed right from the source. So I get one every day.

eta: Or do you mean "folder" you set up on Bloglines? If so, I don't know why you don't get QC more often.

Not that I've read the article or anything, but saying that it's dying justifiably unpopular is like saying in 1998 that the WWW is unwieldy because it's hard to find what you're looking for. RSS is immensely useful for webcrawling and it just needs an easy interface for everyone to use. Having disposable email addresses is just one of the great features (as my profile address shows).

I get the Questionable Content feed right from the source.

What URL do you use?

Wait--I remember my QC problem. Bloglines says I'm already subscribed, but the posts never pop up, and when I expand all my folders it's not there either.

Does it give you the full strip content? I wonder about how RSS affects economic models.

But now I subscribe to a blog about RSS feeds (in libraries, for work) via an RSS feed!

HA! (umm, which one?)

LJ is one that makes it easy to use a feed without even understanding you're doing it.

When I saw your question, I was thinking that the more interesting question would be how many not-thinking-of-selves-as-techie people use feeds without knowing what they are. Harder to phrase outside of specific examples like LJ and Google Reader, of course.