Managing RSS Feeds

By Gerard McGarry on 26th April 2007, filed in Internet Technologies. You can leave a response below. Tags: RSS, RSS Readers, Syndication, XML

If there’s one problem with RSS, it’s that you can subscribe to feeds too easily. I subscribe to more feeds than I have the time to read. I’ve tried most of the major RSS aggregators and homepage solutions like Netvibes.

Of course, too much RSS is a bad thing. I found myself getting more and more frustrated with all the feeds in my reader (Google Reader) and watching unread items stack up. How would I ever read it all?

Well, I realised that I don’t have to read it all. I noticed that I was reading RSS in two different ways:

1. Finger on the pulse type information. This is essential reading for me and includes a number of blogs by web designers, SEOs and ProBloggers that write top-notch content and indespensible advice. These are the blogs I gain the most from and that I’m most likely to comment and participate in.

2. Non time-sensitive blogs. These will usually be blogs that are outside my key interest areas. They might be blogs about music, parenting or the odd personal blog that I like to read from time to time.

Sorting RSS Feeds By Reading Habits

I decided that Google Reader was the best choice for reading the critical RSS feeds. I could browse full feeds quickly and easily, and navigate between posts with Reader’s handy keyboard shortcuts.

I moved all my less essential feeds over to various tabs in Netvibes. I was able to create a tab for each category of feed and create a ‘wall of news’ where I could see the latest headlines at a glance.

By moving out the less essential feeds, my Google Reader has less clutter and I can browse through my feeds much more quickly. The feeds I have moved to Netvibes can be checked on an ad-hoc basis as I’m really only interested in current news from them.