RSS Reading Habits

Photo by Lynetter

I use a RSS reader and read feeds because it is part of my writing process.  Lately, my RSS reading habits have changed.  I haven't given up on it completely, but my process has changed.  My feeds are organized into folders and the folders ordered by priority.  Like a farmer tending his crops, I'd scan through each folder, each feed, bookmarking and annotating what caught my eye, and looking for patterns and connections.  This scan, capture, analyze patterns, and write a blog post is a part of my routine.

It still is, but I now use other methods for scanning.  It's more like hanging out in a village square or a pub -- conversations, news, and resources come to me.   I'm finding new links and posts either through twitter, comments on my blog post, or through people who have linked to me.   

So, it's like I have a left brain, orderly, linear way to scan and a right brain, wildly creative way to scan.

I like how Chris Brogan describes his reading goals.

1. Reading what friends write.
2. Reading about the “new marketing” industry and the tech industry (fishbowl).
3. Reading what people recommend.
4. Reading off the wall stuff that inspires new thoughts (outside the bowl).
   

Michele Martin wrote a post summarizing a paper titled How Knowledge Workers Use the Web  and pulls out some the classifications referenced in the paper.   My RSS reading is mostly information gathering or browsing.

• Finding–Looking for something specific, such as an answer to a specific question.
• Information gathering–Less specific than finding, this is research that’s focused on a particular goal that’s broader-based than simply getting a specific piece of information.
• Browsing–Visiting personal or professional sites with no specific goal in mind other than to “stay up-to-date” or be entertained.
• Transacting–Using the web to execute a transaction, such as banking or shopping.
• Communicating–Participating in chat rooms or forums (remember–this was done in 2002, prior to Facebook and the explosive growth of blogs, etc.)
• Housekeeping–Using the web to check or maintain the accuracy and functionality of web-based resources, such as looking for dead links, cleaning up outdated information, etc.

So, this is the information, knowledge worker part of it -- but how do you keep up?  As Michelle Murrain notes the whole process of writing a blog makes you process the bytes of information that flow through. 

Comments

[Sue Waters]

My attitude is forget about trying to keep up instead start working smarter. For example, there is a lot of pressure all the time to be testing all the latest and greatest tools that become available.

Instead of wasting energy I let others do the testing and just listen to their thoughts by reading their collective tweets and blog posts. For example: Firefox 3 - leave it for now since some are having trouble. Chrome - loads well, works ok, doesn't display sidebars.

With the number of feeds coming into my Google Reader when I do want to write a post on a specific topic I can easily find all the relevant posts considerably faster by searching my reader than using Google.

My google reader is organised into folders. Reading priority is:
1. Twitter RSS - so can respond to any questions
2. Comment feeds - Co.mment and Co.comment - so can respond to any comments if I choose
3. Student Blogging Competition - read latest posts from students and comment
4. Edubloggers
5. Non profit bloggers
6. University student bloggers
7. Ning communities

Work priorities is I spend considerably more time commenting and helping other people (by interacting in twitter) than writing blog posts.

Perhaps a tad too organised now - my email accounts are my to-do-lists and perhaps scary how I'm using making my Google Calender manage my work load. Honestly may need intervention now am color coding my labels in gmails :)

[Jeff Trexler]

One thing I try to remember when managing RSS feeds is what Marshall McLuhan said about the importance of keeping space for independent thought.

Except he said it a bit more colorfully:

"I have, by the way, a peculiar reading habit, developed in the recent years: I read only the right hand page of serious books. If it's a frivolous relaxing book, I read every word. But serious books I read on the right hand side only, because I have discovered enormous redundancy in any well-written book, and I find that by reading only the right hand page, this keeps me very wide awake, filling in the other page out of my own noodle."

With this in mind, I feel OK clearing or skimming through thematically related feeds.