Over the past couple of weeks, I have been seeing more and more news trickle through my twitter, rss, and facebook streams informing me of the apparent death of RSS.  This Death is definitely news to me.  While my RSS usage has fallen quite a bit over the last quarter,  RSS has become much more valuable for me in different ways.

For the latest technology, industry, and web design news, I have joined my counterparts in utilizing twitter as my primary source for immediate information.  For social interactions and a secondary platform for other relevant news, facebook is my best friend.  For a third-tier source of information – comedic, industry, or otherwise, I love me some digg.  But as a database for important articles and information, RSS is still king.

I find myself using RSS more and more as an information trove instead of a resource for the latest up-to-date information.  Google Reader has amazing search capabilities that allow you to quickly, easily, and efficiently, go back and find articles relevant to anything you need.  Obviously, logging into any RSS reader and finding over “1,000 unread items” can be overwhelming.  When this happens, I usually quickly browse through my favorite folders and then mark the rest as read.  If I need to go find information at a later date, I can just do a search.

In my opinion, RSS has been surpassed.  The web 2.0 revolution has created new ways for information to be pushed to the eyes and ears of the web.  As an archive of information, RSS still may have lasting power, but the shift has begun away from RSS as the primary source for up to the minute information.  It will be interesting to see how long it takes for the RSS dominance to fully fall as more efficient methods continue to take over.

What are your thoughts?