Feed Aggregator or Visit Sites Individually?

Discuss.

I've always visited my sites individually, as to get comments, other links from the websites, etc. However, my daily reading pile is getting higher and higher, which makes me want to consider an aggregator. Of course what I should do is decrease the number of sites I visit. But what to cut out?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've used Bloglines for many years to keep up with the over 100+ feeds I keep an eye on on a daily basis. Keeping track of individual sites and regularly visiting them all overwhelmed me years ago. This was especially true for sites where I was able to learn a lot of interesting stuff from reading them, but where the interactivity was low. For sites where I do participate more, it means I actually see posts when they are current and can comment on them and really join the discussion rather than my previous tendency to notice something I would have commented on a week afterwards.

The web-based readers like Bloglines (Google Reader is another) mean I can read from any computer too, whereas software readers would have tied me to only one computer, which wouldn't really work for me between work / home desktop / laptop.

Chris said...

Highly recommend a Feed Reader. I use Google Reader, and it has made things much easier. From the websites that post 15 things a day to a friend who blogs twice a month. I don't miss the stories of the first website (but can quickly scan through them), and when my friend posts, instead of checking everyday on his site and usually seeing nothing new, the reader does the work for me. I've got about 30 blogs amounting to betwee 200 and 300 items per day, but probably get through them in 30 minutes if I take my time - 10 minutes if I'm behind/in a rush.

However, I do miss out on things like comments, and any other things that may be new on the websites.

Also - I second Kelly's comment about web-based readers. You can check anywhere, even if you have only a few free minute, and catch up on a few things.

Chris

Jenny Williams said...

Thanks for the great suggestions! I'm definitely going to have to look into this. I imagine it will be a huge time saver.