Goodbye, RSS: A Breakup Letter

Dear RSS,

I must confess: After our long and tumultuous love affair, I’ve had just about enough of you and your constant nagging. You pop up to bother me with stories and news that doesn’t matter to me when you know that I’m busy, and if I don’t stop by to check in on you at least once an hour, you somehow find a way to nag me with unread articles and blog posts around dinnertime.

I’ve had enough of your laundry list of headlines. You never let me rest long enough to enjoy you for what you really are: a snapshot of my daily news. Instead, you make perusing the Internet a chore and burden my time with irrelevant headlines that make me ask, “Do you even know me?”

So, I’m leaving you for a better program.

Persai (pronounced per-SIGH) not only filters through my unique and personal search habits to ascertain what’s really important to me based on my interests, it will turn each of my individual interests into a custom page, much like our old friend Google News. And what’s more, when it suggests an article I don’t like, all I have to do is click the little red "X" that means "reject" (you know this term well, RSS) and it will be filtered right out of my system.

Though they are outside of an official launch and still in private beta testing, Persai promises to provide me with a personalized search experience. Sure, it comes with its fair share of problems: all-too-specific searches that don’t provide me with enough material to keep me satisfied, not to mention that most searches rank material based on what’s published most recently rather than what is relevant to my personal interests. Still, I’m a busy girl, and Persai is far and away a better option for me than you ever were, RSS.

Persai won’t eliminate the stream of information being thrown at me from the Web, but it will help me sort through what’s most important: Britney’s latest court appearance or Lindsay Lohan’s most recent stint in rehab. And for that, I am grateful.

Goodbye, RSS. It's been real.

Love,
Marie