I’ve tested several RSS readers, but the best that I’ve encountered is Google Reader, which automatically checks off news stubs by simply scrolling. It’s convenient, aesthetic and simple.
You can skim through headlines, first paragraphs and headlines, or full text articles. The service is free, and there are no ads (the New York Times is the first site I’ve seen to implement ads for its RSS feed).
Google News is another service, but it really lacks the appeal of Google Reader, which is much more interactive and I dare say attractive. Google News allows you to customize a front page , but the page is updated by the second from thousands of different newspapers, giving no reason to return regularly. Google Reader, on the other hand, saves published items from your selected newspapers, making a to-do list each day or week depending on the type of paper. Subscribe to a section from The Economist, for example, to have a half dozen items each week. If I’m busy, I scroll through all the items quickly. Alternatively, you can check off ‘mark all as read,’ but I think I’ve only done this once in the past nine months I’ve used the service.
Google Reader also offers two great features. The first allows you to star items, which saves them in a private archives. I often use this when I’m in a rush but see an interesting article that I might pursue later. The other feature allows you to share items on your own RSS feed page, which I’ve linked to my facebook account and my Web site, theombud.com.
From the 100+ items I have each day from 15 news feeds, I may read anywhere from two to a dozen articles. This is definitely extreme, but I started off with just a few news feeds.
One important recommendation to note is subscribers should use section RSS feeds rather than feeds for the entire site. Otherwise, you’ll be inundated with too many items.
Please feel free to note your favorite RSS reader on this blog. I’ve been going steady with Google Reader for quite some time, though, so you’d have to have some convincing stuff.
1 Comment
May 22, 2008 at 2:53 pm
There are many Online RSS feed readers and selecting 1 according to your needs is a big task. This leads to the comparison of these feed readers.
I found a detailed comparison, including Pros & Cons, of some of the best Online RSS feed readers at – http://forums.techarena.in/showthread.php?t=971829