Google Reader: The very essence of life

It’s easy to take certain things for granted, especially when it comes to the interwebs and computing in general. Once you become accustomed to using a particular tool day in, day out, it seems almost ridiculous that there exist people out there who have no idea that such a thing could conceivably exist.

Case in point: Google Reader. Recently in my Clark Kent job the client involved pointed at an RSS symbol and asked what it did. For those unfamiliar with the concept, RSS is the magic pixie dust that powers DEGOURGET’s most heavily utilised gadget, Google Reader. The ever so cute and informative Common Craft video above explains this concept with far greater clarity than my verbose ass ever could. So go watch it and revel in a new way to simply the internet.

Now, I’ll admit that what Logikus and I have with Google Reader could be typified as a love/hate relationship. Others say addiction. (I mean, sure, if you substituted the word “Crack” for “Google Reader” and described our day, we could make Amy Winehouse look like Nancy Reagan, but that’s just being pedantic and boring, plus Keith Richards came out okay in the end, so I’m sure we’ll be fine.)

What’s so great about this here Google Reader thing I hear you ask? Well it’s truly a thing of beauty, a simple easy to use tool that brings the entire internet, or at least the parts you’re interested in, to you. It achieves this in a single page taking away the need to fire up eleventy billion tabs every time you load Firefox. Now you can just load eleventy million yet still manage to consume the whole of the internet’s daily output. That’s the positive. On the flipside, Google Reader is an eveil life destroying force by virtue of the fact it rains down the entirety of the internet upon you, all day, every day. You just can’t keep up, it’s like level 76 of Tetris, there ain’t no way past it. Particularly if you add FFFFound to your feed. Granted, it might seem like a good idea at the first but trust me, your will to live will be crushed beneath the weight of seventeen thousand German Olympic poster designs from 1967.

So if you want to become a power surfer like the DEGOURGET team, sign yourself up for some Google Reader action, though we advise restraint if you wish to keep you job. However if you hate your job and your overbearing ogre of a shaved monkey of a boss – go nuts son! Add every single fucking RSS feed you see and revel in the complete and utter loss of boredom that will follow!

But be prepared to read. Be VERY prepared to read.

Hat tip to Mitch from How To Impact for the Common Craft link.

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