Ask HN: How do you read RSS feeds? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How do you read RSS feeds?

#31

Post by GilbertErik » Thu, Jul 17, 2008, 8:25 PM UTC

I think the key for me is subscribing to more posts than I could ever possibly read, and giving myself permission to not have to read all of them.

Much like I used to read a newspaper, I've turned google reader into my information aggregator. It alerts me to daily podcasts, local/regional/national/global/financial news, interesting articles, etc... I read what's interesting, throw the rest away, star whatever I may want to revisit or leisurely read on the weekend, share whatever I want people to see on my blog, and 'mark all as read' when I start my weekend.

I skim whenever I'm waiting on a build or have a spare minute between meetings, but I separate out into categories things I'd like to read and things I may read if there's extra time. I spend about 2-3 hours a week in google reader, but much less time wading through comments and ads for a net gain.

Re: Ask HN: How do you read RSS feeds?

#32

Post by DrStrngeluv » Thu, Jul 17, 2008, 9:17 PM UTC

I just started using Google Reader about 3 weeks ago. I'm currently subscribed to approximately 30 feeds, and I tend to skim the headlines on the busier sites, and then read whatever might catch my eye. On the slower sites, or blogs from folks that I know, I tend to read the whole article, or give up after I decide that I'm just not interested. I have it configured to purge already read posts, so I just page down the busier blogs until I finish, or stumble upon something I like. I also tend to use the mark all read after the weekend or a day or two off, since I don't have the time to sift through too much detritus from not servicing my feeds. I think with news/social news sites like reddit & slashdot, which I had subscribed to, and subsequently unsubscribed to, have too much noise to lend themselves to reading in an RSS feed.

Re: Ask HN: How do you read RSS feeds?

#33

Post by place » Thu, Jul 17, 2008, 9:24 PM UTC

Reading 20 feeds with newsbeuter (http://synflood.at/newsbeuter.html)

Fast, simple, console-friendly, familiar keybindings and gets the job done without any distractions.

What more could you possibly wish for?

Re: Ask HN: How do you read RSS feeds?

#34

Post by pauljonas » Thu, Jul 17, 2008, 9:24 PM UTC

NetNewsWire

Have embarked upon a quest to break it — up to ~1000 feeds, and although it stalls out my MBP during huge updates, it's held up very well. Tried Google Reader but at about ~200 feeds, it crapped out and the whole AJAXy UI became totally unmanageable (plus, frequent bouts where the server never returned) — Google Reader issues may have been rectified, but at time I experimented with it, it was unwieldy.

I need to do some housekeeping to NNW — presently, I sort by feed source, and just fly through/ignore about half the feeds (especially the ones with frequent updates). It seems the more frequent the update, the less the quality fare, though HN is an exception in this regard. Really need to set up folder buckets to bury those that I might want to read, given extra time.

I scan and can flip through titles and first few paragraphs rapidly (3 pane view).

It really is a more efficient reading experience that magnifies your news/blog coverage, but you need to refine, and dispense with the ones that don't add value or at least bury them.

There is a dichotomy in reading experience via RSS vs. the Web that I will write an article about at some future point and lay out all my thoughts — lots of good stuff out there that has no RSS or content that RSS is not sufficiently capturing the content (some titles only or less than a sentence in body, or web site styling that enhances the viewership experience).

OTOH, the big benefit of RSS is getting to read without the extraneous, tarted up graphic fare in a font size/style more suited to reading text on a monitor.

Re: Ask HN: How do you read RSS feeds?

#35

Post by soldarnal » Thu, Jul 17, 2008, 10:20 PM UTC

I consume feeds (ten in total) in two different ways: my iGoogle Homepage and the Opera Feeds reader.

For the iGoogle Homepage I have HN and /. feeds. These feeds are updated so frequently that I don't want to subscribe to them in my reader (and have the unread ones pile up). These I read selectively - only the titles that interest me.

The Opera Feed reader I use for blogs that get updated at most daily. For the most part, I read every entry, skipping only the ocassional esoteric post. I used to read these ones in Google Reader; but once I discovered Opera's reader is much faster, I haven't gone back. (It would be nice if their synch system did feeds too, though.) I like to use the reader for these because it helps me keep track of what I've read, keeps all my daily/weekly reading in one place, and for feeds that include their content since they load considerably faster without the overhead of their site (e.g. Dilbert Blog).

Re: Ask HN: How do you read RSS feeds?

#36

Post by EastSmith » Thu, Jul 17, 2008, 10:30 PM UTC

Bloglines, about 150 feeds.

I use about 10 categories: must read, local, off topic, certain topic, like say Python, Javascript, etc.

It was a big problem before I started leaving unread categories for a couple of days. Now it is great. Read couple of categories on daily basis, then the other, when I have time, or sometimes mark them all as read (I hate myself for that later).

OT: Since when Bloglines became so unpopular? Or is it just HN trend? Does Google Reader rule the blog readers world now?

Re: Ask HN: How do you read RSS feeds?

#37

Post by zitterbewegung » Thu, Jul 17, 2008, 11:24 PM UTC

I use safari's built in RSS reader or Google Reader. I usually read the whole feed unless it is quite large and then I skim them or read the first 10.

Re: Ask HN: How do you read RSS feeds?

#38

Post by ragaskar » Fri, Jul 18, 2008, 12:06 AM UTC

arthurk wrote: post #20

I'm using Google Reader for mostly personal blogs but visit sites like HN directly since they tend to clutter my whole feed reader. I had subscribed to the HN feed for a long time but since the feed displays every blog post that hits the frontpage there were a lot of uninteresting entries. I would re-subscribe to the HN feed if there were some option for a feed which only displays entries with X upvotes and/or X comm…

It would be nice if the HN feed included the short description -- I find that titles are often too brief to evaluate whether or not it's worth clicking through. Additionally, a comment count would be welcomed.

Including a rating, or including a dynamic feed for a particular rating would be icing on the cake.

fwiw, i'm a happy google reader user -- 158 subscriptions. The only downside is that it's my go-to procrastination website. I read just about all RSS content, and click through about 10-20% of the time depending on the feed. If I find that I clear the unread on a feed more than once or twice, I'll usually unsubscribe (because obviously I don't have the time to keep up with it). Sometimes I use feeds as a glorified bookmark.

Re: Ask HN: How do you read RSS feeds?

#39

Post by Kilimanjaro » Fri, Jul 18, 2008, 12:07 AM UTC

Google Reader for all feeds except slashdot, digg, reddit and HN which I visit directly in my browser.

Re: Ask HN: How do you read RSS feeds?

#40

Post by patrocles » Fri, Jul 18, 2008, 12:24 AM UTC

rss2email -- rocks for blogs where you don't want to miss a single post (friends and other high S/N feeds)

In general thought, most news actually isn't news. It's just data and we need to model what we actually care about, and then monitor for that.

E.g. I don't really care that there's a war in Darfur, I care that the world has more armed conflicts now than last year. So write a script to keep track of them (scrape wikipedia) and when the number goes up, email yourself to write a check to UNHCR.