DISQUS

Louis Gray · 10 months ago

Post by Eric Berlin: http://www.friendfeed.com/ebrage

coldbrew · 10 months ago

Um, no. Now I'll go read it ;)

coldbrew · 10 months ago

How I'd amend the title: "Should the use of an RSS reader be Jettisoned On the Information Journey?" Because using FF is still relying on RSS/ATOM syndication [ EDIT: didn't mean to imply SUP was syndication format]

Eric Berlin · 10 months ago

Yes I suppose technically that would be correct. Big Picture takeaway I think is that RSS is now so crucial to the information economy

Jesse Stay · 10 months ago

Well done Eric. My experiment will be interesting - I'm learning some things as I do it. I'll post my follow up next week when I'm done.

Eric Berlin · 10 months ago

Thanks Jesse, and very curious to hear more !

AJ Kohn · 10 months ago

There is NO way I could get rid of RSS. Instead I've left memetrackers and standalone sites behind. I can get those via RSS or through 'smart people networks'

The latter is really about using people as your filtering algorithm. I find that I don't need to look through TechCrunch or Mashable or Alley Insider or Gizmodo or any of the other big blogs because one of my human filters will find that stuff for me. (I'm not concerned about being first.)

Hopefully I provide this service to others in return.

So even though Google Reader is far from optimal I get a lot of value out of it. I track my Google Alerts there and I even track my @replies from Twitter via RSS. (plug: How To Get Your Twitter Replies via RSS)

I believe in RSS. I believe it's been poorly marketed and that the best days for RSS are in front of us, not behind.

Eric Berlin · 10 months ago

I find that I use Google Reader as my main source of information consumption and sharing, and then branch out to FF and Twitter for social media engagement to find out what the major trends and buzz are about. I swing back and forth between using Twitter or FF more. I was in a pretty good Twitter run for a while, and now I'm back into the FF fold last month or two.

Ken Sheppardson · 10 months ago

Funny... I sorta thought the collection of bloggers and editors I subscribe to in Google Reader was a "smart people network".

Eric Berlin · 10 months ago

You're right, they are. The difference is though that with FF and Twitter, the smart people you're connected to will tell you what's hot and what's important to them. Google Reader's friends shared items is fabulous at that aspect too, come to think of it !

Ken Sheppardson · 10 months ago

I think the heart of this post is really "I'm not a big keyboard shortcut guy". See, that's the absolutely BEST part of Greader for me... I can just dump the toolbar and sidebar using Gina Trapani's "Better Greader" Firefox add-on collection [just type "U" and "W" with the 'Minimalist' theme enabled], max the screen with F11, and just sit there hitting J scanning each article for about a second, hitting S to star the stuff I want to dig into later.

Eric Berlin · 10 months ago

That could be the next step in my Google Reader ecolution, Ken, we'll see !

Cains · 10 months ago

If we all abandoned RSS we wouldn't actually find new content. FF would turn into just another broadcast channel. FF is a smart people network because everyone filters their information & finds the best content, it's a collaborate process. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with being a passive user but I've noticed anchor users (I'll use Robert Scoble as an example) changing their habits, which takes away from the FF experience. The anchor users are a big part of FF's success.

Eric Berlin · 10 months ago

Yep, you always need that 1% power user base to drive the content and interaction forward with any community. And Scoble may make up a couple points just on his own ;-)

frodeste · 10 months ago

I could never abandon Google Reader and RSS. It allows me to find relevant info much faster then any other news ready I have used, and together with Friendfeed and Twitter, gives me all the info I could ever want.

Each service has its own use though. http://www.friendfeed.com/frodeste

Michael Fidler · 10 months ago

I guess you could call this perfect timing, because I've been testing out a new app this morning, which was mentioned over on Techcrunch. It's called MicroPlaza (crappy name), and it aggregates all the url's of the people you follow on twitter into an organized reader. While Jesse's approach might work for him, I simply miss too much when I'm either not online or actively engaged in something else while on ff or twitter. Lately I have referred to twitter as my second newsreader, but with this new app it really is. Other apps like feedly, have only served to make reader more useful than it ever was before. Between feedly and Microplaza, I have a better handle on the flow of information out there. Maybe now I can spend more time interacting on ff and twitter, then I have in the past.

Eric Berlin · 10 months ago

Sounds like an interesting new service, will check it out Michael.

t0rx · 10 months ago

FeedScrub is pretty useful for focusing some of the high-volume feeds down to things you really are interested in.

smilbandit · 9 months ago

I built my own reader because I wanted to consume feeds my own way rather then stringing together a bunch of services. I took the engine and built a little app around it at http://punchingsoup.com.

dccrowley · 9 months ago

There is a difference between abandoning RSS or abandoning your RSS reader. I don't use google reader any more. I have switched to iGoogle and feedly. I use iGoogle to scan news, have tabs for news news, another for the RWW, techmeme hacker news etc and two others for blogs. I use feedly every other day to scan stories. RSS/ ATOM are great technologies and I'd hate it if they disappeared. Life online wouldn't be half as good without out them imo.

Slightly off topic... I wish Google would implement RSS in search like Yahoo do. They do it for blog search, but I want it all. Google Alerts has "way too much setup"