Addiction is a sad thing...

I have a confession to make, I have an addiction. I would normally remain quiet about this sort of personal shortcoming, but things have reached crisis point and I feel compelled drag my secret out into the cold and sobering light of day.

What is this awful thing to which I am addicted?

OK, here it is; I am addicted to RSS news feeds. Or Really Simple Syndication as it is known by it’s full name.

In fact it’s worse than just RSS, it’s XML, RSS 2, all flavours of ATOM and of course +My Yahoo.

It’s a disease, a fever that takes over my very being to the point of obsession. Some people collect stamps, some collect comics, some sad people even collect beer mats (I actually used to do the latter) but I am addicted to collecting news RSS feeds. I look for the little orange button on every web site I visit with a view to adding it to my burgeoning aggregator list.

For those still unaware of RSS, come out from beneath your rock and listen; it basically allows you to check all your favourite news websites (that support RSS, XML etc) from a single program on your computer. All you need to do is paste the feed URL into this aggregator program and it will check for updates as often as you like. The vast majority of serious news sites support these feeds, all you need to do is check for the orange button (or sometimes just a text link). Once it’s added to your news aggregator program you can see the whole web page in the frame within the program interface. My favourite aggregator program currently is Awasu. It’s well designed, easy to use and FREE!

This technology is of course designed to save the news junky time and effort, in practice however (for me at least) it means that I spend the majority of my time catching up on world events that, frankly, I really don’t need to know about. I greedily grab feed details from almost every site that supports feeds I happen to come across. I am bitterly disappointed if the latest online newspaper I have found is not quite advanced (or important) enough to have the little orange RSS/XML button on it’s front page. My computer is constantly beeping and demanding my attention so I can read the latest headlines from San Jose to South-End-Sea, to peruse the editorials from such worthy web publications as The Argos News from Brighton and Hove, The Star Press from Muncie Indiana or The Bangkok Post. I feel I must digest the latest political commentary from The New York Times online, know who won the 3.30 at Newmarket and keep abreast of the weather in Wichita.

There are more specialist website feeds: automotive feeds, space exploration feeds, blog feeds, weather feeds, financial feeds, science feeds (essential if you want to be the first in your office/workplace/classroom to know about the latest advances in nano-technology or superconductivity), then there are the plethora of gadget and computer news feeds for keeping up to date with this week’s new iPod colour or the latest release date for Windows new Vista operating system.

A myriad of papers and news sources vie for the reader’s attention with seductive headlines. Well, not always seductive, in fact more often than not the headlines are rather mundane; reports on the latest union machinations in Glasgow or perhaps the sad tale of a kitten stuck up a tree in Des Moines, Iowa. But that’s not the point. The point is you are plugged into the real world, whatever happens wherever on the planet, you will be the first to read about it on your computer screen, heralded by a little announcement sound of your very own choosing. You feel in complete control with your virtual news studio – you will umm and arrr over the morning press release from the Prime Minister’s office at number 10 Downing Street, and never will any story of a kitten stuck in a tree, somewhere in the news obsessed world, escape your notice again.