When I chat with people online, they often ask me what I’m doing, and I feel like my answer is almost always the same: I’m reading in Reader.

I’m really passionate about RSS (that’s “Really Simple Syndication,” for the uninitiated). I’ve been using an RSS reader in some form or another for, well, basically since they existed. But my reader of choice is Google Reader. Not only because I’m a Google fanatic in general, but also because it most closely mimics the feel and format of Gmail, which is what I use for email. (Hey, I already gave my Google fanaticism disclaimer.)

Loyalties aside, the fact it resembles the inbox is actually very important. For those who haven’t used a reader before, that’s basically what it is: it’s an inbox for information.

Anything that is RSS enabled can be fed into your reader, hence the term “RSS feed.” Personally, I use it primarily to keep track of all of bloggers who write about all of the countless topics in which I’m interested.

In the past, syndication could be described as synonymous with predictability. When something was syndicated, it meant content was distributed to different outlets for simultaneous publication. However, unlike old-fashioned mediums like newspapers and magazines, which are delivered in a timely manner on a preset schedule, bloggers can (and do) update whenever they want.

Thus, the primary reason RSS technology is so valuable and novel is because it enables asynchronous syndication. Some days a blogger might update ten times, while other times they may not update for a week.

However, there is something to be said about the old-fashioned interpretation of syndication, because it kept the playing field level. Everybody got the news at the same time that the newsboys ran out onto the street corners yelling EXTRA, EXTRA, READ ALL ABOUT IT and hawking the papers that were literally fresh-off-the-press. Not so with the internet.

Personally, I don’t want to miss a thing. There is a lot of potential value to be created when you’re the first one to consume and act on a new piece of information. This is why when you think about it, using a reader makes so much SENSE. It literally removes the guesswork in trying to keep up with the sporadic writing habits of a blogger. Subscribing to RSS feeds is a way to deliberately foster a “just-in-time” inventory system for managing information.

This already should be a very familiar method to you, because it’s the same one you use for managing your email. As emails arrive in your inbox, you have a pre-existing set of factors to determine whether you need to read and respond right away, read and file away for later action, read and subsequently discard, or read at a later point in time.

You’ll quickly develop a similar criteria when it comes to the material in your reader. Learning how to take full advantage of the folders in Google Reader is a good way to speed up the process, but that’s a whole other post in itself.

So, instead of wondering when bloggers are going to post next, go get your reader on. Stop wasting time refreshing websites and checking for updates, when you can just sit back, relax, and wait for the RSS to roll in.

Or at least, you can sit back and wait… I’m rarely relaxed when waiting for my information fix.

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