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December 4, 2006
Bloglines
I've had a couple of conversations lately with people who visit this blog (and others) "regularly". They are just checking their bookmarks which is soooo last century! Many were unaware of the role that RSS aggregators play in making it MUCH easier to keep track of your favourite blogs.
I track over 500 blogs. And yes I know it is a sickness but it is also part of my job to know what is going on in all segments of the libraryland as well as innnovation, technology and a few hobbies. I know many of you have to track blogs as part of your work.
I use Bloglines. Make your life easier if you're not using an aggregator. Sign up for Bloglines. It is free. Download the simple "Sub With Bloglines" bookmarklet for MSIE or Firefox. It is then just sooooo easy to subscribe to a blog or any other RSS feed. YTo check that any of your favourite blogs that new stuff, you can tell right away and only click on those with new stuff. Such a productivity tool. I can follow my 500 blogs in 15 minuites twice a day!
I know there are other aggregators and everyone has their favourites. If you want to recommend another one, just send me a comment and I'll approve it as long as you don't put the URL in the subject line (looks too much like my Splog junk). However, right now I am too old and lazy to change (LOL).
I know to some of you this seems common knowledge but there's more library land folks heading up these learning curves every day. Those who've trod the path before need to share the tricks and tips.
Stephen
Posted by stephen at December 4, 2006 5:00 PM
Comments
i used to use bloglines, but lately, i have been trying out google reader. it's still in some kind of beta, but it's not bad. i like how it remembers where i left off reading, as where bloglines assumes that i just read everything in the folder i just clicked on and deletes the entries. also, i can choose to read everything i subscribe to, in the order of update time.
Posted by: mona at December 4, 2006 6:16 PM
Good advice--but with Firefox 2 or IE7, this step:
"Download the simple 'Sub With Bloglines' bookmarklet for MSIE or Firefox."
isn't really necessary--the orange RSS button shows up in the address bar and you can configure it (easily) so Bloglines is the default action. Same number of keystrokes, but one less bit of clutter on toolbars.
As for recommending another one...well, Bloglines has been cranky now and then of late, but I'm not ready to change either. (But then, I only track 423 blogs; I'm a piker.)
Posted by: walt crawford at December 4, 2006 7:39 PM
Similar to the bookmarklet, but built-in:
In Firefox 2.0, if you are on a page that has an RSS feed, the new hip RSS favicon will appear on the right side of the address bar. Click on it and you will have the option to subscribe to the feed in a few different aggregators, including Bloglines. You can then set Bloglines as the default aggregator when you click on the favicon for other pages/feeds. No fuss, no muss.
Posted by: Greg at December 4, 2006 7:57 PM
I'm a fan of Google Reader (reader.google.com) myself. It's pretty much equivalent to Bloglines, but it looks sexier and I think it's easier to use.
I've been setting up my coworkers with RSS aggregators and I've still got a long ways to go before my department (or even my library) are all onboard. What's common knowledge to some is uncommon to others.
Posted by: Dylan Baker at December 4, 2006 8:01 PM
I tried Bloglines and Google Reader as well but in my opinion it is Netvibes that has the best layout, features, plugins and so on.
www.netvibes.com
Posted by: Edwin at December 5, 2006 7:03 AM
Firefox users would do well to check out Sage - http://sage.mozdev.org/. It's clean, lightweight and handles RSS (2.0, 1.0, 0.9x) and Atom feeds. There's also Technorati and RSS search engine integration. For folks who don't need to check their RSS feeds from multiple locations with a web-based solution (although import/export in Sage with OPML is a breeze) Sage is a very good choice.
Posted by: Daniel Lee at December 5, 2006 8:47 AM
If you are interested in getting started with bloglines, or have co-workers that are interested, you can take a look at some videos I created that can help you get started (very basic):
http://mplictechtrain.blogspot.com/2006/10/bloglines-video-series.html
Posted by: Kevin Dixon at December 5, 2006 11:58 AM
I use Sage (on Firefox portable so I can take it around to whatever computer I am on) and Google Reader.
I just started using Google Reader, and I think my favorite feature is the ability to quickly "star" and "share" items for future reference. I can even republish my shared items as another RSS feed for my webpage, if I want, or can just point people to the page-
http://www.google.com/reader/shared/17170290131012436865
I think I'll be keeping both Sage and Google- Sage for feeds I want to read all together (for instance, the daily edition of my school newspaper), and Google for the ones that are ok out of context.
Posted by: Karin Dalziel at December 6, 2006 11:40 AM