My Future Internet

The demise of Google Reader and the reading I've done as a result of it has really made me start to think about the future of the internet. Or not really the internet as a whole, but my experiences with it.

I'm already behind in so many ways. I don't have a tablet. I do have an android phone but I don't rely on it for too much beyond email, twitter, navigation, and the random internet searches I need to do. (in other words, I don't really browse the internet or read blogs on it) So I'm not really one of those people who has come to use their phone for everything. So many of the articles I've read have been like RSS is so over, get on board social media!

The thing about this particular argument is that I've always used social media as the icing on the cake, not the cake itself. I enjoy discovering new news that way, but it's not an effective, efficient, or organized way to keep up with writers and bloggers I already know I want to follow. Social media is like chaos..fun chaos, but chaos none the less.

However, I haven't really found a good alternative to google reader. I don't want to have to install something on my computer quite frankly. There's also the drawback of not having everything connected--whatever route I go (if I do, that's the point of this post, tbh) everything is changing. I am going to have to cull my feeds for pretty much any new service I think. I need to rethink how I do stuff on the internet.

Maybe this is a good thing, I'm being forced into evaluating how I spend my time and how much information I'm giving myself access to. Maybe google reader had already made me very complacent about blogging, giving me the leisure to catch up on which blogs I wanted at will, and not worrying too much about going weeks without updating since most loyal readers would eventually catch me in google reader. I remember when it came on the scene, it certainly changed my blogging experience. And I think that's going to happen again. If google reader expanded my blogging world, I think the end of it is going to make it smaller again.

I rarely add new personal blogs to my reader these days anyway. I use it for a lot of news services so I can skim headlines and easily find what I want, but I think I'll be culling my reader in a major way these next few days and then importing it to whatever service I settle on. I'll probably also need to do the same with Twitter since apparently it's supposed to serve as my way of keeping up with news nowadays. And tumblr. It's time to make my experiences on the internet more focused I guess.

Nothing lasts forever, and I sort of feel like the days when anyone could make a blog and build a decent readership are over. We are moving more and more into the quick and the fast--Twitter, Tumblr, etc. I feel like internet relationships grow more superficial and transitory. I know it's not true across the board--there are always exceptions (like there are still message boards out there! and yes I grieved their passing too lol) but I guess this week forced me to wake up and realize that yes this is happening.

Sigh. I'm not good with change, but I'm going to do my best in this case to suck it up. I hope to be able to keep up with most of you somehow!