Blogs as Education

In a sense all blogs--like newspapers, magazines, and non-fiction books--are learning tools. But, like most people I would guess, I usually follow the blogs that talk mostly about topics I know quite a bit about. It usually doesn't take much for me to grasp what is being discussed on most of the blogs I follow.

Well, I decided yesterday, partially inspired by Adam Greenfield's IA or Not IA post about the conservatism of our industry, to shake things up and get rid of the RSS feeds of blogs who only said things I already mostly knew. (This was about 30 feeds!) Then I went and found blogs that were saying interesting things about subjects about which I only knew a little bit, but wanted to know a lot more: mobile and devices. I found a handful of blogs that are outside my comfort zone, speaking different terminology and, well, thinking differently. I'm going to use these blogs (and any others you might suggest about devices and mobile, to educate myself about new subject areas.

This might be old hat for many of you, but it's new to me. My 130 or so blog feeds are mostly friends and acquaintances, many of whom do the same things I do. I want to stay current with that, of course, but I also want to learn more about other interesting stuff out there. So this is, like most things, an experiment.

In case you're curious, the new blogs I subscribed to are Little Springs Design, Small Surfaces, MEX, Wireless Wonders, Crunchgear, Pocketfactory, and Touch.

Originally posted at Thursday, October 5, 2006 | Comments (2)