With the recent passing of Walter Cronkite, the preeminent power of news media of the 20th century, one can’t help but to be reminded about how vast the news sources of today are. Keeping that in mind, I figured I’d share my current favorite way of browsing through my daily news… as I now have it beautifully streamlined.
I’ve been a big fan of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) for a while now as there are a number of benefits in using the stripped down web publishing format for both publishers and end-users alike. As an end-user, the benefits are simple: RSS enabled websites allow users to subscribe (or, opt-in) to the feeds they want… receiving timely news on the information they want. While this concept, or format, is nothing new… the ways in which to receive them are. As the web matures, so do its technologies (which is one of the reasons I love it so) and with every new advent comes a new way of doing things.
Until earlier this month the primary way I was receiving my RSS feeds was through (Mac) Mail. It’s great! You find a website you like, click the RSS feed icon in the address bar (Safari) and click the “Subscribe in Mail” link… and voila, you’re now receiving all articles from that site into [your custom labeled] inbox folder. Genuis! Now every time your Mail client looks for email it will now pull any RSS feed you’ve subscribed to as well… right into your inbox. Again… nothing new, I’ve been doing this for years. The problem is, after a while I was receiving so many articles it got impossible to track and as an end result… I wasn’t reading them. Though, I did get in the habit scanning through the titles via the “Subject” line to see what warranted further reading but, again, since there were so many even that got to be a bit overwhelming. Enter my secondary method, Google Reader. Another
phenomenal way of browsing through your daily news. The great thing about Google Reader is that it sits in the cloud and is tied into your Google account, which means you can access it from anywhere on virtually any device, and works delightfully well on an iPhone.
While there have been many plays for RSS readers and utilities over the years, it wasn’t until recently that new web technologies, and the improved RSS 2.0 format, have been able to breathe new life into web syndication. Whether you’ve (knowingly or unknowingly) been using RSS via your iGoogle, Yahoo!, MSN, Meebo, email client, or any other preferred homepage or aggregator/portal of choice… being able to utilize them to their fullest potential has been less than ideal. Though, in my opinion, the best so far has been Google Reader. That is, until feedly. With the feedly FireFox plugin, I am experiencing my timely RSS feeds in a whole new way… and lovin’ it! Also, since it integrates with Google Reader, as soon as I launched it the feeds were already set-up and good to go.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised by this feature rich, beautifully executed, handy little plugin. So much so, it’s now my new homepage and, I find that I’m actually reading more. As they put it: “feedly weaves your favorite content into a fun, magazine-like start page.” And… it’s the truth! It also: tracks the articles you’ve read, gives you the option to save and share articles of interest, and has multiple preference settings. Some of my fav’s include: the ability to filter out previously read content, seamless integration with Google Reader, Twitter, Friendfeed, and YouTube, and the nifty “mini toolbar” for quick saving, sharing, and posting to Twitter.
View the 1-minute introduction video below:
Additional features outlined by Mozilla:
Feedly is a full feature RSS reader exposed through fast/interactive magazine-like interface
* import your favorite RSS feeds and sources from Google Reader, Bloglines, Netvibes or your bookmarks
* collect and organize RSS feeds into tabs/categories
* configure multiple views: title only, title and summary, image grid, video grid, entire content
* filter the most relevant/popular content
* share articles on twitter, friendfeed, tumblr, delicious and facebook
* syncs with Google Reader
* syncs across multiple computers
* search for specific keywords within your favorite sources, twitter and friendfeed
* offers an extensive list of keyboard shortcuts and rich integration with Mozilla UbiquityFeedly supports a wide variety of RSS and ATOM feed format
If you want to streamline your news, music, video, or any other syndicated online content try feedly, I think you’ll be happily surprised at how useful (and enjoyable) it is.
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Thanks J — this is very helpful; I’m going to get my feedly on.