Tag Archives: reader

How I use Google Reader without going insane

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It’s a never-ending refrain in the social media world: “There’s just so much content out there!” So many good blogs to read and think about. For a while my Google Reader was getting out of control as I continued to add RSS feeds.

I’ve tried various ways to get a handle on the many blogs I read, but my latest incarnation is to group all my social media/marketing blogs into folders, labeled by the frequency with which I want to read them:

Google Reader Organization

Blogs in my “Check Daily” folder are my top priority. These bloggers typically post regularly and it’s content that I continue to find valuable or thought-provoking. Currently blogs from folks like Amber Naslund, Olivier Blanchard, Dave Fleet and Todd Defren are in this folder.

Next is my “Check Weekly” folder. It consists of interesting blogs that either don’t post as frequently or that I’m not as religious about following. Their posts might not usually be as time-sensitive and I can wait until later in the week to catch up. Or they may tend to be bloggers who write longer posts that take me more than just a few-minute scan in the morning to digest. I try to rotate different bloggers into this folder every so often. Right now people like Tom Martin, Brian Solis, Jason Baer and Mack Collier live here.

My “Twitter Friends and Tweeted Posts” folder is where I put a lot of bloggers I’m friends with whose content I’m likely to see on Twitter long before I get around to checking my reader. Arik Hanson, Lauren Fernandez, David Mullen and Scott Hepburn are all in this folder. Usually I see tweets and retweets to their new posts throughout the day and so I really just use this folder to scan headlines and peek at any posts that I might have missed. For the most part, though, the posts that end up in this folder are ones that I’ve already seen.

The folder I call “Popular and Prolific” features blogs like Chris Brogan, Danny Brown, Copyblogger and HubSpot. These are “big name” blogs that post a lot of content. I don’t necessarily have time to read them every day, but I can count on their content being good and useful and I want it all in one place to go back and access later.

My last folder is the “Check Infrequently” folder. These are blogs that don’t update frequently or that I haven’t found a real connection with yet – but I still want to be alerted when new content is available. I find that I enjoy blogs that are less frequent but more thoughtful. Every once in a while I’ll check this folder to see if Lisa Hoffmann or Shonali Burke have anything new.

To see what posts I like and am sharing, you can check out my Google Reader public share page.

The result of this folder system: It’s still way too much content, but at least now I feel like I can take it in chunks and read a little at a time based on how I’ve prioritized the blogs I’ve subscribed to. Every few weeks I’ll look at the trends and analytics that Google Reader provides and see if there are blogs that I’m consistently reading or not reading and move them to a different folder (or unsubscribe) as a result.

What works for you in organizing your RSS feeds? Do you use a plug-in like Postrank to help you sort through content? Do you find yourself relying less on your feed reader to discover new content? I certainly see plenty of posts shared on Twitter, but I’m in no way ready to give up RSS because I feel like I’d miss too much.

Share your strategy for managing the beast that is your feed reader in the comments.

Google Reader makes me lazy

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I read a lot of blogs and graphically, I have no idea what most of them look like. Like many people, I read blogs via RSS feeds dumped into my Google Reader. I love Google Reader because it aggregates and organizes all the information I want to read. I can usually save posts to del.ici.ous right from the reader or e-mail a post to someone if I think they’d be interested.

But in most cases, I can’t read comments or make a comment directly from Google Reader. I have to click on the article to be taken to the blog’s site and then make a comment. And I rarely do this. It’s not that I never have any opinions on what I read or anything further to share, it’s just that I’m usually blasting through posts at work and never take the time to visit and comment. If there was an “add comment” functionality in my Google Reader at the bottom of each post, I’d probably be all over it. Maybe there’s a better feed reader out there that has this type of functionality. If so, I’d love to hear about it!

Now, I know that you can often get RSS feeds of a blog’s comments, but I already feel overwhelmed just trying to make it through all the blog posts I subscribe to, let alone the comments! I understand that often some of the best gems come out of the comments, and I know I’m missing out by just passively observing the blogosphere and not actively participating.

So, I’m hoping the fact that I have my own blog now will push me to click-through and add my pair of pennies to posts I enjoy. It’s a month into 2009 and I haven’t made any resolutions yet, so here’s one: I resolve to click through and comment on at least three blog posts per week.

There. Let’s see how I do. I suppose it wouldn’t be half-bad to see what some of these blogs actually look like.