Thing 4: Keeping Up

When it comes to keeping up on news and events, I feel like I'm pretty much on top of things.  I get a lot of news already from Twitter, and I check the Associated Press' mobile app at least once or twice a day to keep up on the latest happenings.  I used to take advantage of RSS feeds on my Mac with Safari, so I'm no stranger to them.  Although I must admit when an update to that browser changed the way RSS feed detection functioned, I only briefly played around with an alternative reader (Schrook) before ultimately giving up the practice.

For this thing, I decided to play around with Zite.  I liked the idea that Zite worked a little like Pandora in that I could like or dislike news stories and the software would learn from my decisions to present me with articles catered specifically to my interests.  Upon downloading the app and creating an account, I choose from some of Zite's recommended topics, as well as searched for and selected a few topics of my own - including some library related ones.

For the most part, the articles that Zite recommended form me were interesting, and often from sources I didn't know about or rarely explored.  Some of the tagging for the stories can seem a little questionable, but I am impressed with the wide array of topics to choose from.  I like the way the app is structured.  The layout of the content is clean and different parts of the app are easily accessible.

My first thought in reading about this app was that I probably wouldn't use it - that it would unlikely change my current practices in keeping up with news, but after playing around with it for a few days, I actually think this will be an app I use on a daily basis, and likely multiple times a day.  I really cherish the customization aspect, and I seem to find new topics to favorite every time I use it.  In particular, it will affect how I discover content about libraries and librarianship.  As of now, I mostly get information on my field from e-mail newsletters, following library-related associations and companies on Twitter, and having database alerts inform me of articles published in scholarly journals.  I think Zite will find content from sites I haven't traditionally sought out, like personal blogs, and I am excited to see to what kind of new things Zite will expose me.