Feeds and Feed Readers: A Clean Slate
I wiped out my feed reader a few weeks back, and haven’t gotten around to re-populating it. Now, I’d like your help.
I don’t read many blogs regularly. For the very few that I do, I prefer going to the blog itself. But there are others I know I should be following more vaguely, and I want to know who you think they are (on the PR, social media, and marketing fronts at least).
So tell me… which blogs in these areas are always must-reads in your opinion? I’m going to cap it at ten for the three areas combined. I don’t want to know about blogs that are occasionally worth reading, or even usually worth reading. I want to know whose posts I should never miss. Thoughts?
I’d also been using bloglines in the past, and I’m not overly fond. Any thoughts on a better feed reader I should move to? Which do you use, and why?
If you enjoyed this post, please leave a comment or subscribe to the feed to stay on top of future rants, interviews, or PR and social media tid bits.
Comments
Interesting question - i guess in many ways a reader allows you to sort through the crap because most blogs are never ALWAYS good.
google reader integrated with igoogle is great.
Jennifer,
I would avice you feedDemon from Newsgator. If you have multiple computers, it enables you to synchronise your feeds among them. The features inisde this reader are really nice and this reader is the best I have found until now(tested more less 15 RSS Readers before). I liked your article on facebook, i was on my way to write down something similar but i will link your article ;)
Jenn…
I’d go with Google Reader, and I’d subscribe to MANY more feeds than you are aiming for here.
Put the ten Must Reads in a list, and check them. Throw the rest in a folder, unread, and occasionally clear them. The great thing about aggregating them in Google Reader is it makes it easier to search them, should you want to track back a topic.
Another highlight for Google Reader for me is the sharing of links. I’ve got about a dozen people that I get recommended links from — and it’s like getting the best of those blogs that I didn’t want to sift through (just like you.)
Whatever you do, don’t add me to your reader. I don’t provide enough value (not in the PR end, anyway.)
I use google reader pretty extensively and enjoy being able to share/read posts with comments. However, I’ve just started using Feedly, which I enjoy visually - it’s a bit like having your morning news or a personal online magazine just for you.
Thanks for the feedback folks. I had heard a lot about Google reader previously. I may look into it, although I’m trying to cut back a bit on my overall Google usage. It may be the best bet here though.
And I will definitely be limiting it to ten - not overall, but 10 per niche I feel like following. To be quite frank, I just don’t care enough about what most other people are saying all the time to include them - that’s why I wiped them all out to begin with - way too much garbage, and I refuse to become a slave to social media (I need to quit blogging and reading blogs long enough to have an actual life!). That’s not to say I won’t / don’t read blogs not in my reader. I periodically do blog searches to see what people are saying on something specific in the industry, and use that as an opportunity to catch up with some and find some new ones. As of now, I have three that I’m planning to include: Bill Sledzik, Melanie Seasons, and KD Paine.
Google reader is pretty good, although I haven’t reviewed many.
Our site is purely an information resource, not a blog, but we have a weekly podcast. It comes purely from a advertising Media & Creative perspective. Love to know what you think of it.
I started from google reader, probably because it just came up most famous, when I first started to blog.