Last spring I conducted an experiment using a second Twitter account (@anderscj2) to publish RSS feeds that I could follow with my primary account (@anderscj). The experiment was to see simply if this would be a useful way of keeping up to date than managing both a RSS reader and a Twitter account. What I found was this second Twitter account was extremely valuable. I found myself reading blog posts through links that were generated by this account far more often then the content pushed to my Bloglines account. I also found that many other people ended up subscribing to this account and those who I introduced to Twitter and recommended they follow this account ended up with perceptions of Twitter being a valuable place to find up-to-date resources for professional development.Perhaps the most valuable reason I found for following RSS feeds this way was it put me in contact with content in real-time. I would often discover content within a few minutes of when the author posted it. Reading a blog post so close to when it is still fresh in an author's mind makes for a more lively exchange of ideas. If you see someone has just written about a topic the chances are pretty great that now is a time they are interested in discussing it.
Finally, one fear I had was that I would miss something important. But, I found that when I did return to my Bloglines account that I rarely found anything there that I was interested in but missed. One reason for this was my network would retweet things that were really important or profound. If I missed something important I could always look at the list of retweeted articles.
Earlier this fall my @anderscj2 account went silent. I had used a service that shut down unannounced to push RSS to my Twitter account. Friday I started working on reviving/rebuilding this account and it is now up and running with 76 education and technology related RSS feeds from blogs and journals. Additionally, I am including the author's Twitter username in each post so people following this account can also find and follow the authors on Twitter. I know I have missed some pretty important feeds that I really ought to be following. If you have a recommendation, or if you follow @anderscj2 and would like me to add a feed to it please post a link to that feed as a comment on this post.
As of the time of this posting what follows are the feeds I am currently publishing through this account:
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