Reader Smashes Surfing

Or is Reader the new Surfing?

I have been using Google Reader for a few months now. This follows several previous uneventful fruitless attempts to use a news reader of some sort for the past few years. It seems like GR is a perfect fit for me. Maybe I just wasn't ready for a reader before now. Either way, I think that in addition to GR itself a strategy that I've formulated on how I read seems as equally important. Here are my strategies for how I read using GR.


Create some tags.

The number and type of categories I used fluctuated quite a bit in the beginning. However, after consideration and trials of different techniques my current categories have remained stable for months. I'll identify each tag and its role in my reading proclivities.

I've decided that there are nine large content categories in my world. For each of these categories I make a GR tag (which looks like a folder). The categories are: Aggregators, Comics, Culture,Forum,Humor, News, Opinion, Sports and Technology.

Additionally, I have created some special GR tags which represent something different than previously listed content-oriented tags. They are Favorite, Unassigned and Unsubscribed.

Aggregators are high volume feeds that are essentially content-less but have potentially interesting links to content. I spend very little time keeping up with or spending time on aggregators, but every once in while they can be fun and nothing gets me in and out of such a fancy quicker than a GR tag that groups them up for me. Aggregators were a wonderful way to get a jump on finding content when starting out using a reader, but in the end they have a low signal to noise ratio compared to an existing rich set of refined subscriptions.

Comics feeds are something I'm always looking to grow. Comics are the only thing I miss in the whole death throw of the the newspaper business. I never fall more than a day or two behind on my Comics.

Culture feeds are somewhat of a catch-all for me because they represent interesting content that is somewhat difficult for me categorize. Generally, this is how I tag my creative art and writing related feeds. I might catch up on Culture monthly. Mostly I despise the artsy crowd, even as I pine to join them.


Forum feeds represent somewhat of a dying and perhaps soon to die need for me. I am down to participating on a single forum. The roundabout blog reading, commenting and trackback dynamic actually suits me better than forums. Forums, especially the technical ones, are overwhelmed with illiterate and lazy posters these days - so meaningful forum participants have become nearly extinct.


Humor feeds are generally satirical and the most coveted to me. Do not confuse Humor and Comics. I generally catch up on Humor on the weekends or during the work day if it is a particularly bad one.

News feeds are extremely high volume and do not receive much attention unless some event is on-going that I want the latest. So the News tag mostly sits there, poised for usefulness but isn't a daily or even weekly read for me. Whenever I read an article from any News outlet, I generally add them to GR. I do not otherwise actively add News feeds.

Opinion feeds are also extremely high volume and I try to cherry pick, usually by title, a few articles a week to read. The overwhelming majority of Opinion feed content is never read.

Sports feeds are high volume and generally unread unless I'm looking for a story on something.

Technology feeds are generally blogs by geeks that I read. However, sometimes they are corporate feeds from tech firms I have a vested interest in following. I definitely cherry pick by title on these and skip over 90% of posts.

If any of the feeds already tagged in one of the preceding content categories and is read often enough, I tag it additionally with Favorite. My first GR activity is to read my Favorites. These feeds should be considered recommended by me.

When I run across and subscribe to a new feed, I immediately tag it Unassigned. Eventually, I will review it and see if I want to categorize it with one of my content tags. If I decide it isn't worth reading I tag it Unsubscribed, so that if I accidentally subscribe to it again I'll know where it belongs. Either way, once I make a decision I remove the Unassigned tag. Unsubscribed feeds would be analogous to an anti-Favorite.

I don't think I'm maximizing on the variety of feeds out there, and I'm sure I'll expand my categories as needed as I grow with GR.


Subscribe to Feeds

GR comes with a handy link that I've added to my browser's toolbar, Subscribe. With it, I can simply click it when I'm on a blog and it starts the process of subscribing it to my GR.

I tend to subscribe to feeds linked from feeds I already read and enjoy. It's a process of an ever-growing network of subscriptions.

Here are feed tendencies that tend to attract me:

• Originality - topics not covered elsewhere are best
  
• Quality Writing - proper spelling, rich vocabulary and a complete lack of both SMS-speak and classic ESL
  
• Content - the content:link ratio needs to be extremely high
  
• Voice - I need to hear the writer's voice when I read
  
• Low Volume - A feed with 1-3 articles per week is ideal
  

There was a time when blogs where supposed to be about a diary of links on where you surfed and not much other content. For me that is repugnant. I don't really care where you surf. I care what you think.


Share Your Feeds

GR comes equipped with the ability to share what feeds you are subscribed as well as share individual articles in those feeds. For instance, earlier in this article I share my feed subscriptions by tag, using hyperlinks that GR gave me. For sharing articles, there's a handy "Share" button on any article you are reading. An example of sharing articles is on the right side bar of my blog, What I'm Reading Now. It is an auto magical feed presentation of particular articles I am interested sharing. It is all very easy and real-time to do this sort of sharing, which is a great design.