Here’s my 3 step process to finding loads of great articles.
1. Add bunches of subscriptions to Google Reader.
a) Create folders on various topics of interest to you
b) Spend time finding the 10 best blogs you can find on each topic.
c) subscribe those blogs’ RSS feeds and categorize them by folder.
d) Sort each subscription “by magic” – Reader will learn and bring you headlines it thinks you want.
2. Skim lots of headlines in Google Reader.
a) Spend time getting good at spotting potentially good headlines.
b) Skim fast, starring headlines that are potentially good.
c) Go back and spend time on the starred items.
d) “Like” the items that are indeed good, “Share” those “really really” good.
3. Watch as Google Reader learns from your Likes/Shares.
a) Start reading in the “All Items” folder – and notice the vast majority of good headlines will, over time, bubble to the first few pages.
Once you’ve got this system going, you can add loads of subscriptions to Reader – I presently have over 300 or 400 – because “sort by magic” will tend to bring you good articles. I never worry about the unread count. Every so often I mark “as read” everything more than 2 weeks old. The more subscriptions you have, the more likely it is that a really important article will get picked up and reblogged, so you’ll catch it.
{ 2 comments }
helepful. I've seen very few other articles on reader strategy. I have about 90 feeds sources – but I look at just the ones I seem interested on a daiy basis, and then have to hit unread items in wired, lifehacker and christian science monitor. zThey do churn out new entries!!
GOd bless.
Brian
I have 426 subscriptions right now. I regularly hit the "Mark all items over 2 weeks as read" button without a second thought. Like you I do have a few folders that I hit every day. But I also have several that I "dip into" like one dips a toe in the water. Liking/Sharing/Starring really helps Reader *a lot* – it often will find great high quality articles for me. I still wish it would cluster all of the news articles that are exactly the same together, though: so many times an article gets syndicated and then shows up multiple times in my feed.
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