Netvibe: keeping track of blogs

Netvibe is a reader that provides a fun way to track many types of resources that have RSS feeds like blogs. The thing that makes this reader a fun option is because it is very easy to personalise to suit your needs. One way it does this is by having a personal and public page where the user can add new feeds to one or both.

As more information and updates are made available through tools like blogs, wikis and twitter a reader becomes vital to be able to track of all of these. Netvibe makes it easy to add the feeds from all these tools. You can then sort each of them into the tabs, on the personal or public page, depending on your needs.

Another great thing about Netvibe and the user public page - is that it is very easy to show others what resources you consider valuable by giving them the url to your public Netvibe page.

Twitter and updating others about what is happening

Many of you may be familiar with RSS feeds. Another option to post updates is through twitter. Most sites are set up to allow a user to receive RSS feeds but these are very one sided, while twitter is about having the capacity to interact with what you are monitoring.

With twitter the user can reply to what has been posted, thus making it more interactive. Through the ability to follow they can also have the tweets appear in their own space. When someone is following another all their followers can see what they are monitoring. An example of using twitter to update others on what is happening can be demonstrated with Creative Commons Australia at http://twitter.com/ccAustralia.

With twitter the user can set up software on their desktop to access their twitter account. Installing software like twhirl makes monitoring those that they are following as well as updating their own tweets much easier.

The other aspect with twitter that makes it more than a match for an RSS feed is like with RSS feeds twitter can be set up as a feed into another site.