This week, Google introduced a handy RSS news feature on its free e-mail service, Gmail (which I use routinely). Called WebClips,
it’s a thin headline strip that puts a stream of news headlines at the
top of your e-mail. A user can select from a list of news sources to
include, and occasionally there will be an ad in the space (but the
majority of the time it’s a new clickable headline from one of the news
sources selected). An interesting behavior is that when
you open an individual message, sometimes when you get an ad (“sponsored link”), it’s
relevant to the content of the e-mail.
While it’s simple to disable this feature, I kept it to give it a try
— and find that I like it a lot.
Why? Because I spend a good chunk of my time on the
Internet looking at e-mail (probably more time than I spend looking at
websites). And it’s a nice break to see breaking news as it gets
reported without leaving my e-mail interface.
I also like the serendipity factor. When I want a break from e-mail, I
find myself clicking the arrows in WebClips to move to another headline
from my
source list. It’s useful for me, and I feel better informed on busy
days when I don’t have time to peruse news sites. (Your reaction may
vary; I can imagine
some people finding it an annoyance.)
Seeing Google’s e-mail implementation of RSS makes me think that such a
feature — a simple thin strip of customizable-source RSS headlines —
would be a welcome addition to any news website. Reading the print
edition of a newspaper offers more serendipity than looking at most
news websites. On the latter, you have to decide where to click. But
this kind of RSS headline feed offers an alternative way to see a
variety of stuff from the day’s news without thinking where to go next. That’s appealing now and then.
