We all have different ways of keeping up with the news, whether it’s international events, local sports or tidbits related to our professions. Many people use RSS feed readers regularly to quickly scan the headlines from all their favorite news sites and blogs before setting off to the specific sites to read more. I’m curious which news reader (or readers) you use and why you use it. Does it have specific features you like? Is it easy to use? Feel free to include personalized news sites such as My Yahoo or Netvibes if that’s where you go to read your news feeds. And if you get feeds sent to you by email, tell us about that. I’ll try to tally up the various services used, and will run the more interesting responses (and reasons) in next week’s Your Take Roundup.
- 14 years ago
Mark Glaser
Categories: Uncategorized
Which RSS news reader do you use and why?
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View Comments (24)
I have used Bloglines for a few years now, and I couldn't be happier. I find it more convenient than Google Reader. Plus it lets you show people your public feeds: http://www.bloglines.com/public/cgibby/.
I use Netvibes. Fantastic tool to personnalize and organize to scan professionnal news. Very easy to use and organize. The only pb is to get the right feeds, it's still chaos around the blogs to get easily their rss feeds.
Sage on Firefox is the way to go for me. Easy, easy, easy. It reads any rss feeds and operates seamlessly within firefox's browser window.
Before the big feeds trend, I had a My Yahoo! account for news. I still use it to check the headlines of major news like Reuters, AP, and some other things (it's connected to the e-mail I use for stuff related to my blogs). I use Bloglines now as my primary feed reader, but I use it strictly for blogs. I am hooked. It is fairly easy to use; I like their interface the way you can mark stuff to read later or make clip folders. I gave Newsgator a try for news sources, and I use it mostly for some news items I keep up with, but I don't log on to it as often. I did it as an experiment to try something else. Their interface seems relatively slow at times (and I have high speed), and it does not automatically mark stuff as read as Bloglines does. I may give the Google reader a try yet. We'll see. Overall, however, I do prefer something that is Web-based, since I work on a computer at work and then at home. Something on the PC does not make that much sense to me at this point.
I use FeedDemon 2.0.0.23 and I like it a lot. It's easy to use, full of interesting features (most of which I haven't even begun to exploit) and it allows a a great deal of personalization.
Significantly, ever since I started using an RSS reader, I post a lot more on my blog, but each post is a lot shorter. Plus, now posts tend to be more directive torwards sources and less opinative. Conclusion: when you use an RSS reader, your information gathering tends to be less intensive and more extensive (and so your posts). That should mean something on the way we connect to the world. Meaning: an RSS reader is not just a tool; it is a tool that changes the world, in a way.
I use RSS feed modules on my personalized Google homepage for work-related feeds (with the Google reader module for the less-important and infrequently updated blogs). I keep up with my social blogosphere (people I know or read for pleasure) via Pluck's built-in RSS reader. I have tried Sharpreader, Bloglines, NewsGator, My Yahoo! and others but they just didn't work for me. I also occasionally click on the RSS snippets in my Gmail, but I've never personalized the feature.
I use Sage for Firefox, but yesterday I downloaded RSS FeedPopper v1.8 when it was promoted on the Apple Web site. So far, so good! It has a nice, clean design (like Sage) but it has a sidebar that pops up on the side of my screen when there's new news. I'll probably use both feed readers (Sage and FeedPopper), but I like the handiness of having headlines pop up like they do in FeedPopper.
Another vote for Sage - the interface and simplicity can't be beat.
FeedDemon - it's fast, offers powerful searching and sorting, and it synchronizes with all the other NewsGator offerings.
I use Simply Headlines (http://www.simplyheadlines.com) It's FREE and easy to use - and when I'm out of the office, I read the text version from my Treo email.