Today (May 1st) is RSS Awareness Day. I personally read almost all my daily sites via Google’s RSS reader. I find it so much easier and faster to use than going to each individual site looking for new articles. Back in 2004, I wrote a short RSS Primer article to introduce people to the concept.
Do you use an RSS reader, and if so, which is your favorite one to use?
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I do use RSS extensively. After trying virtually every RSS reader on the planet (see http://pc.akajohndoe.com/rss.htm for the list) I found FeedGhost and have been using it since.
I use Google Reader to read feeds from over 150 subscribed sites almost daily. (Of course, they don’t ALL post daily – I just try to keep up with it a bit each day.)
I wish I could find a good RSS reader. I use Google Reader for now, but I am not happy with it. I guess I want something that is desktop-based. Vienna for the Mac is terrible. Can anyone recommend a good, free, Mac RSS client?
Tyler:
I’m curious, what about Google Reader don’t you like? For me, it’s perfect because I can use it on any machine, PC or Mac and it will always have a current list of new articles for me. I use a PC at work and then at home, I use the Mac. Anything I read during the day will stay marked as read when I get home. I love that :o)
NetNewsWire from Newsgator rocks. I use the “OrangeSquish” theme, which has the title, the poster, the url of all links, and a scrolling box for the text.
You can set it to pull the web sites in, or to launch them in your favorite browser. You control the frequency of updating. You can have it launched and sitting there, with all the text downloaded to read on the plane, without having to be online.
This has been my only way to really follow most websites for the last few years, and has changed both the number of sites I follow and the level to which I’m involved with them. I have 44 individuals and groups just on flickr that I follow, and can tell at a glance if there’s anything new. I can easily drag them around to change the order, review the titles of posts, etc.
In LifeHacker, for example, I can skip the posts that I care nothing about (windows downloads, dating hacks, Linux hacks, etc.), and scan the titles of things I may want to read. Same with Gadgeteer, Engadget, and the like. I keep up with three company blogs at work so that I am at least aware of progress in other product groups besides mine. It also helps me to post about my work, so that others can know what I’m doing.