Do you use an RSS reader? How do you manage content?

) April 18th, 2009

I subscribe to 10 blogs/news sites and receive e-mail notifications for updates. I recently decided to switch to getting an RSS feed for the blogs, and because I’m ADD, am a little overwhelmed by managing the volume of information.

I have the blogs divided into folders: News (Huffington Post, Slate), Social Media (Chris Brogan, Jake McKee), Life Hacks (Unclutterer, Dumb Little Man, Bargaineering), and Spirituality (Happiness Project, Zen Habits, Urban Monk).

In addition to the folders, I use the star feature and tagging only on articles I may want to refer to later. As I skim articles, I star and tag the articles I know I will want to refer back to later, and then also tag the ones that are “Tier 2” reference articles- I might want to refer to them later because the subject matter is useful.

I feel slightly overwhelmed, which is perhaps because this is a new work process for me. However, I’m wondering if the ADD issue is at play, and e-mail management of RSS is more in line with my “piler” nature, whereas using an RSS reader requires “filer” skills.

Any thoughts, suggestions, better ways to manage? Do I just need to learn new habits?

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4 Answers

I like to keep my email separate because email, for me, is either work related or something important from family. I usually read through my feeds when I want to take a break. I use the google feed reader which is web-based and has some nice features. One thing I’ve started doing is watching the trends: am I really reading this blog and do I really find it to be useful? There were some blogs it turned out I wasn’t that interested in after all and I unsubscribed from them.

I have some friends who swear by NetVibes

phoenyx (7401

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I use Net News Wire for my Mac. It shows me updates when I run it or reload it. They are ran by New Gator if you have a PC. And I usually get my updates through my Net News Wire on my iPhone. I just use the mac app to add new feeds. It works great.

willbrawn (6614

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I use Google Reader for about 100 feeds, so I basically just flip through headlines every 2 seconds or so and if something catches my eye I read it further and open it in a new tab if I find it interesting. Once I’m through all of the new items I read all of my open tabs. If it’s something I want to read again I’ll usually bookmark it on Delicious.com. If it’s something I just want to comment on but probably not reference again I’ll probably post it on Twitter with a comment. Everything else is ignored.

StellarAirman (2902

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I use GreatNews. I don’t like RSS readers that organize articles into a list-type format like Google Reader. The format that GreatNews uses makes it a lot easier to go through feeds that get a lot of updates.

classyfied (285

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