Thing #9 Finding Feeds

I spent some time searching through the assigned Blog search sites again today.  I had searched some last week, but my findings seem to be the same again today. 

Blogline's Search Tool - There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to what sites they offered.  Given our current situation, I decided to search for "Dallas Cowboys".  When I briefly looked over the descriptions of the latest blogs I found most to be junk.  They seemed to be individual sites where people just wanted to rant and be ugly.  Not very helpful for someone who just wanted to gather the latest information on the game, not necessarily personal opinions.

Edublog's Award Winners - while this site did not provide a place to search for blogs but only review award winning blogs, I did find the format helpful.  The design of the site made it very easy to browse through and very user friendly.  It seemed to be very limited in content though.  But I think this would be a great source to use occasionally.

School Library Blogs on Suprglu - The content of this site appears to be more professional than what I found on Blogline's.  I did add this as an RSS Reader but when I clicked on the icon it did not give me a confirmation or tell where it will go. so I am not sure it worked.  If I can figure out how to have this sent to me or added to my Google Reader, this is a site I would like to browse through the titles to see if any interest me.  This has potential.

I don't know if I am doing something wrong or they truly are as confusing as it feels to me.  I did not find any of the other sites to be helpful if you were searching for a generic term (elementary school librarians, school librarians, mesquite isd, etc.).  When I typed in a generic term I had thousands of things pop up but they all seemed to be individual websites.  Maybe I am expecting something different.  I did find a few links to newspapers and other news organizations and those seemed to be easy to navigate and read.  

I am not sure how helpful these search tools are unless you are VERY specific in your search.  It seems to be very time consuming and I might have just as much luck searching google.  As I stated in an earlier post, I can see myself adding sites to my Google Reader only if I happen to stumble upon them.  I am not sure this is something that I would necessarily go out and search for on my own in the future.

My state of confusion makes me wonder if I my expectations are off and I don't really understand what RSS feeds are????  I thought I had an understanding after the Google Reader assignment and I have enjoyed using that service, but the further I searched these sites today the more confused I have become.