College | Caffeinated

screenshot from http://snackr.net/

Sometime around last Thursday, I did an intense cleansing of my computer. After moving a massive amount of photos, docs, and mp3s to my hard drive, I was finally able to do everything I have ever dreamed of (at that moment): install Snow Leopard and other cool new toys.

sidebar: when I say intense cleansing, I mean INTENSE. Did you know that when your Macbook’s Hard Drive runs out of available space, it spells it out for you? When I saw, “Available: Zero KB”, I knew I needed to get cracking.

The first toy I downloaded was Snackr. Best. Decision. Ever. If you’re not using this FREE app, ummm, why the hell not? Especially as an ad-freak, PR enthused, closet tech-geek, journalism student, this thing is SO COOL. It’s a news ticker for your laptop. The ticker shows headline, source, how long ago it was published, and a preview (should you choose to click the headline). Yo Anderson Cooper, what you got on that?

How am I using my Snackr feed? After toying around with different ways, I’ve decided to use it as a compliment to my Google Reader (which I use solely for blogs that I NEED to read daily, or, postly?). Essentially, it’s a news feed of what’s interesting to me. I’ve got a bunch of feeds from various areas or authors on Advertising Age, True/Slant and Wired, the ‘Comment is free: America’ feed from The Guardian, Mashable, and more of the like. These aren’t places I am able to read every article every day. It’s pleasant, and easy, to have them roll across the bottom of my screen and pick what to read, when to read, without having to untangle the web.

How can you use it?

• Journalism students: Subscribe to your favorite news sources, specifically for in-depth news. You know where you’re going to get your breaking news (iPhone, Twitter, etc), but wouldn’t it be convenient to have a ticker full of the numerous places/journalists publishing fantastic, in-depth stories? Get snacking.
• Other students: Whatever your emphasis is, there are news sources for it. It’s the Internet. If you were majoring in Canadian fur trading, I’m sure you could find things (btw, that’s actually a class at University of Minnesota-Duluth). A friend of mine who is a nursing major asked why she would use it. Well, there is Nurse.com, MedicalNewsToday.com, and probably a gazillion (exaggeration alert) other news sources for the nursing industry.
• Communications Professionals: I can see this tool being useful in many ways, but two in particular:
  • Follow feeds that pertain to the industry of your client(s). You won’t read every article. Nor should you have to. But you will see the headlines, and Snackr even has a nice ‘preview’ feature for you. If the same topic keeps scrolling by, maybe it merits some further digging.
  • Get a feed of your favorite news sources on the roll. You’re busy keeping up with your client(s) all day, right? Well you can still know what’s going on outside of the clientsphere- without wasting interwebz time.
• My Mother: My mom loves looking for new recipes, cooking tools, and the like online. Instead of wasting time combing through different sites to see what looks good, why not have them scrolling across your desktop? “Green Bean Birthday Cake” doesn’t sound too great, so don’t click on it. “Deep Fried Green Bean Birthday Cake” sounds interesting, I might click the preview on that.

Indulge your craving, become a Snackr.

photo credit: law_keven