My Experience with RSS Feeds

Borchuk, L. (CC) 2014.

EXTRA EXTRA READ ALL ABOUT IT! You can now collect all incoming news on ONE digital platform. That's right! Feedly, is a source that pulls content from websites of your choice/interest and localizes it to ones spot. Now as I mentioned in my earlier posts, I am hoping to get a job in Public Relations. A P.R. Practitioner must be aware of global issues. How do I stay updated? The Globe and Mail. I follow them on Twitter, get push notifications to my phone from their App, as well as view the paper online (I mean...physical newspapers are so overrated). Searching through all those mediums can be time consuming, especially with Twitter. I am following so many other users that I often over look Globe and Mail tweets and miss an important event. Feedly has helped me with this problem. By allowing me the access to the Globe and Mails stories, I no longer have to play the little game of cat and mouse. All I have to do is open My Feedly, go under my "News" tab and BOOM. Just like that I am updated with all the current events happening within my community, as well as the global community. I mean this whole "access at the push of a button" thing, I could really get used to it!

Don't believe me? Do I have to persuade you further? Well here is a story that I SCROLLED PASSED on Twitter because I was not paying attention to the content that was in front of me. As we all know today is the day of the Super Bowl. Now, I am not the biggest sports fan however; I do watch the game for a couple of reasons.

1. The half time show- I mean last year Beyoncé LITERALLY shut down the stadium.
2. Knowledge- This will be the main topic tomorrow on campus. 
3. The commercials- Every marketers dream.
4. Food- I can never turn down a chance to binge on chips and dip. 

Now referring to my third point, the advertisements- did you now that Canada misses out on the best Super Bowl ads? Well the Globe and Mail has a report that explains it all (Click on Globe and Mail for direct access to the news coverage). Don't have time to watch? Here is my mini summary at your disposal. Super Bowl advertisements are a known phenomena with viewers. Seeing as advertising networks fund the advertisements, in this case the network being FOX, the money is deposited back to FOX, an American network. Now in Canada, we watch the Super Bowl through CTV working towards strengthening our economy. BUT seeing as CTV is Canadian, American advertisers would need to buy time from CTV. This does not happen. Even when Canadian's watch the FOX network, the satellite substitutes the American advertisements for Canadian ads (so CTVs money and investment is not wasted). How to avoid it? An antenna, or the Internet. YouTube provides live time commercials for viewers such as ourselves.

GIPHY. (2014). "Slow Clap" (mock clapping). Retrieved from:
http://giphy.com/gifs/37Ez5CZ8P0jSM 

Without Feedly I would not have gotten the full story. Now is it the end of the world if I missed that news story? No. Could it have consequences? Yes. As I said, the world of Public Relations is closely tied to advertising. For a Public Relations Practitioner this is a crucial news clip. That is just one example of how this convenient, not to mention FREE, tool has helped me and furthered my knowledge. Can we give them a standing ovation?! Slow clap...anyone? Embrace the present and the opportunities the Web 2.0 has to offer. Are you getting the full story? Or are you missing out?

xoxo