I missed it the first time around, but Google has a promotion running for their RSS aggregator, Google News. It features reading lists of prominent writers and personalities in a diverse set of fields: “news,” food and health, technology, and trends and fashion. Think of this as an iTunes celebrity playlist, if you will.
It’s an interesting look into some sites I’d never visited before. But after you view a few, you realize…
Hey, big names like Arianna or Paul Krugman, or… Mark Bittman have the same access I do to some of the same websites.
Yeah, trendsetters are using some of the same sources (and tools) for their line of work that we may decide to use (for work or pleasure). And for the tech folks, you don’t need to even be that accomplished to make it big.
Back in the late 1990s, I followed a lot of web designers through their blogs… I emulated them as a blogger myself. We all watched Blogger start up. Some of them knew Evan Williams and the Blogger employees; I was just a lurker. Almost everyday I go to read Jason Kottke’s blog. He’s about the same age as I, and he’s interested in a variety of things. He’s questioned more than once whether he’ll keep blogging… but it’s become a part of who he is. I’ve never met him, and although I’ve left comments on his blog, I’ve never e-mailed him. Yet, I’ve been reading him now for over 10 years. I feel I know the guy–and this is my point–he feels like a regular guy. But he’s read by thousands of folks every week. He obviously does the part well; I’d say the appeal isn’t so much his writing as his diverse choice of interesting topics to link to, ponder over, or argue with.
It’d be fun if Google would entertain a Power Readers for educators. Not just the vocal edubloggers, but what does Arne Duncan read? What’s in your superintendent’s aggregator (does he or she have one?)? What’s in Reader box of the CEO of one of your biggest educational technology vendors?
Do the sites folks read or follow influence your opinion of the personalities? Why?
August 27th, 2009 at 8:07 am
Actually Power Readers lists have been around for a long time. To me, that’s the function of a blogroll. It offers your visitors some good recommendations for other sites you should be reading. I often suggest to people looking for feeds to add to their aggregator that they explore the blogroll of someone they already read and trust.
As to our superintendent, I’d just like to know that he HAS an aggregator, never mind what’s in it.