Comments on: Reading Blogs Like Books

By: Colin

Colin — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 16:03:09 +0000

I find out a thing new on a variety of information sites everyday. It is always stimulating to find out content of other copy writers and learn a little something from them. Thank you for sharing.

By: leon

leon — Thu, 13 May 2010 05:34:21 +0000

I created a rss in a free blog of mine, then created a post “don’t read rss too often”, and add it to my google reader.
The last step is subscribing this rss and making this rss my default view in google reader.

Now, when I go to google reader, the first thing I see is this post.
That remind me, go to back to work.
Anyway, the reading blog like books suggestion is very useful.

By: tejas

tejas — Mon, 03 May 2010 18:32:28 +0000

You know what’s worse? Twitter.

By: Osvaldo M.

Osvaldo M. — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 19:10:00 +0000

“were simply regurgitating information from a much smaller set of authority blogs”, there is so much truth in that little sentence… I am myself a RIA developer and at one point i gathered on my “work research blogs” folder, 300+ different feeds which kept me “up to date” with web design/RIA topics… After a year or so of trying to read them all i noticed i failed miserable to actually do any proper research and as the author of the article points out, i found out 80% of my blogs were actually regurgitated info from a handful of blogs and a few newspaper sources… The experiment which actually worked for me was to print my entire URL feed, then sit down in front of the computer and type in the URL the blogs i remembered the most without looking at any feeds nor URLs… obviously, the ones whose articles appealed the most to me were remember quite easily… those ones whom i dont remember at all were completely removed from the feed….

By: Andy Griffiths

Andy Griffiths — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 12:33:38 +0000

I only recently added RSS feeds to my mail program and I regularly find myself checking for new content when I perhaps should be working. It is very addictive and obviously the more feeds you have the more time you invest in reading them = NOT MUCH WORK GETTING DONE.

Not to say it is not beneficial reading your feeds, as many of mine do actually help me in my job as a designer, feeding me with resources and satisfying my need to learn new techniques.

Needs to be kept under close control though.

By: MarkusT

MarkusT — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 10:43:19 +0000

is there any option to show feed itmes that are older than 30 days? i couldn’t find any option in google reader

By: Andre Kibbe

Andre Kibbe — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 05:58:14 +0000

RSS feeds are exactly like newspapers if you allow them to be fed to you in a serial fashion. That’s why I made the distinction. The purpose of this style of blog reading to read the whole archive at once rather than continually keeping up to date.

Even if I could find a setting to batch feeds at more infrequent intervals, which I haven’t, I’d consider that a difference in degree rather than kind. It would still create a situation where I’d be anticipating updates and feeling obligated to maintain my information consumption, which is what I was trying to disrupt. Some people have more willpower than I do.

By: Nocturnal

Nocturnal — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 18:57:56 +0000

I’ve already done this a few times myself. I just recently added back a bunch of feeds though and it does consume a lot of my time.

By: Erwin Roosjen

Erwin Roosjen — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 16:32:50 +0000

Although the tutorial is nice, I’m surprised at the comparison. RSS-feeds and blogs work much more like newspapers than like books, if you ask me. You pick the headlines you like and read the article below and you skip the uninteresting headlines altogether.

I am not very familiar with GReader, but is there perhaps an option to only update the feeds once every day at a set time? Then you can read all the new articles after the update and when you start up GReader at another time, there won’t be anything new to read because the next update is not until tomorrow!