So the idea is, keep an eye on the sites that interest you, without visiting each one separately. Let’s take a look at the type of things you might want to monitor. The image at right was taken from my Google Reader screen. To save space, only my subscription categories are shown, not the individual feeds that I’m following. You can probably figure out the kinds of sites that are being followed in each category but a couple of them are worth special mention.

Community is for information that affects me locally. Blogs from my home town and organizations that I belong to.

Updates contains feeds from software and services that I use. For instance, by subscribing to the WordPress Development feed, I make sure that I don’t miss important updates to the software that powers this blog.

webdancers tracks all of the blogs that my company has developed for other people. All businesses can benefit from keeping track of work that they have done for others or by monitoring important voices in their field. Putting all of this information in one place means that you are much more likely to actually see it.

At the moment, I’m subscribed to 54 feeds. This number changes frequently, as I’m particular about what I subscribe to. After all, if it’s there I’m going to look at it and it’s easy to add and drop feeds as necessary. In Google Reader, you can also share items from your feeds, which automagically appear on a custom web page which, of course, has its own feed for your friends to subscribe to.

Once you start using feeds, you’ll start thinking about using the Internet in a different way. Instead of having to take a specific action (visiting a web site), you are making an always-on connection to information that interests you. The feed reader is your side of the connection. On the other side are a myriad of data sources (just look for the little orange RSS icon or the word “feed”). All blogs have feeds and so do many other web sites and online services. I suggest you start with a few blogs and get in the habit of checking your reader regularly. Oh look, I have 12 new items in Google Reader!

I got an email from a friend the other day who was asking for advice on digital TVs and what her options will be after next February, when digital tuners become mandatory. In answering her, I wrote, “We have cable and all of our equipment is analog. I don’t know what we’ll do yet. Most of the time that I used to spend watching TV, I now spend online. I don’t think the TV’s been on in over a week. Maybe we’ll just ditch it.”

Can a high speed Internet connection actually replace traditional media? I think it can, if you choose to consume media differently you did in the old days (up until about five years ago). For example, when I watch a news broadcast on network TV, I get a well prepared, professionally presented summary of the day’s news, complete with pundit commentary. However, I am often aware that the stories they’re reporting on are out of date, from having followed the same stories online. More importantly, I’ve read, watched or listened to many differing opinions on those stories during the course of the day, viewpoints that even a high quality TV program (and goodness knows there are few enough of those) leaves out of their coverage.

Many people question the quality of information available online. In this area, the gap is quickly shrinking between online media (primarily bloggers) and traditional media. Mark Glasser wrote in his blog Mediashift, on PBS.org:

The largest mainstream news sites, such as Washingtonpost.com and MSNBC.com, are brimming with blogs, usually run by reporters, editors and producers who now write more frequently and with a more personal style than in a typical news report. Simultaneously, independent blogs are doing more reporting, breaking more news and hiring former journalists to staff their publications. While the New York Times was hiring Brian Stelter and distributing the Freakonomics blog, the tabloid blog network Gawker Media was hiring seasoned journalists like Owen Thomas for Valleywag and changing its mastheads to include “managing editors,” “associate editors,” “reporters” and even an “editor at large” (on Defamer).

Anyone who still believes that bloggers are one breed and journalists are another has been living in a cave since roughly 2002.

There is also increasing crossover between mainstream media and the blogosphere. Erick Schonfeld moved from Time, Inc. to the staff of the blog TechCrunch six month ago. He writes in a recent post:

The worlds of blogging and journalism are colliding and I want to get some thoughts down on this transition before I forget what the old world was like or feel too comfortable in the new one.

…

There is something about blogging—the immediacy, the give and take, the point of view—that helps it compete with traditional media for attention. And we don’t want to lose that. We like to speculate, argue, and debate—sometimes in ways that traditional journalists may think is unseemly. That’s okay, as long as our readers keep coming back for more.

I think we will keep coming back for more. One of the reasons that I want to help people understand how to use the Internet is that I find the place so darned interesting. As David Weinberger puts it:

The world is far more interesting than the mainstream media have let on. Blogging is all about discovering just how interesting the world really is.

I think I’ll tell my friend to put whatever money she was going to spend on her TV into a fast broadband connection and a laptop.