“Oyez, oyez!” the famous call of a town crier.  The official disseminator of important information.  The man or woman slated as the go-to person for public announcements.  Over time these criers progressed into more readily available means such as television, newspapers, radio, and the internet.  Now we’re not even required to go acquire these means of information.  Instead of checking for releases of information at specified times we can leave a machine in operation to monitor, retrieve, and disseminate the information back to us.  News aggregators such as RSS feeds are delightful tools to constantly remind us of everything from needed information to worthless announcements and economic deals.  These feeds of information maintain a constant vigil for updates from media sources.  When something new arrives it is sent directly to a singular source.  At any point one can examine this source for the latest updates much like checking a mail box (except you don’t have to step out into the elements and you have purposely signed up for the junk mail that comes in).

 Why does this matter?  Well it really doesn’t matter much.  It’s just as easy to scroll through the websites that give out the feeds.  The only difference is time.  Instead of waiting for a series of websites to load there is an instant listing of possible titles.  Find the title you like and click to read.  Instant access as a time saver is great but not a good idea if your goal is to kill time for a while.

Image courtesy of Wiki Media

“Town Crier.” Wikipedia. 16 September, 2010th ed. 2010. Web. 12 Nov. 2010.