Read blogs efficiently :: Use RSS Readers
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If you are following only a handful of blogs, going to their main page and simply reading up on what you’ve missed is most likely an easy solution.
On the other hand, if you are like me and follow more than a dozen different blogs, you’re way better off with an RSS reader.
What is RSS you might ask yourself.
RSS (formally “RDF Site Summary”, known colloquially as “Really Simple Syndication”) is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts. (quoting the WikiPedia)
So, you can use RSS feeds to subscribe to the Blogs, news headlines and podcasts and follow all of them in one location (the RSS reader of your choice). In most cases reading blogs via RSS is even better than reading them on the web directly. This is due the fact that most RSS feeds do not contain all those advertisements you see all over the blogs these days, and, they let you read the whole blog post at once. Most sites these days like to keep their look uncluttered and the only way to do that is by splitting the post at some point and requiring the user to click “Read more” links in order to see the whole post by itself. In RSS - all the information is right there where you want it: In front of you!
Finally we come to the main question: Which reader should you use? There are many, some are desktop based programs which run on your computer, other - web based applications. I personally prefer the latter since you can access those from wherever you are.
I use Google Reader. It has a very simplistic interface and it gets right to the point. You can subscribe to any number of blogs and whenever a new item is published you are immediately notified. Google Reader also offers ways for you to 
Star the articles (effectively bookmarking them for latter reading), and sending them to your friends via email. It also provides a way for you to tag them for easier finding later on, as well as to Share them with your friends. Simply great!
There are of course a lot of other choices. Here are some that are known to be good:
- Both Internet Explorer 7 and FireFox browsers have integrated RSS Readers. They are mostly a good choice if you do not wish to install anything or use any of the web services.
- NewsGator has some nice services (both for Windows and Mac, though they cost money) as well as some free web-based solutions.
- ReadMine has a Windows based beta solution which you could check (it looks all right).
- RSSReader seems to be an OK software based solution though it looks ugly to me
- If you use Mac, Vienna seems to be one of the nicest applications out there!
If you use Yahoo as your email client, you can simply subscribe to RSS feeds straight in your inbox. Just look for the icon like the one on the top left of this article 
Once again, my personal choice is Google Reader. You won’t go wrong in the long run if you start using it before any other. I simply cannot live without it
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5 Responses to “Read blogs efficiently :: Use RSS Readers”
By michael on Jan 7, 2008 | Reply
Thanks for the mention of Readmine. Would love to get some feedback as we are trying a different approach to most other feed readers.
Thanks again.
By Mike on Feb 7, 2008 | Reply
There is also the EasyByte RSS News Ticker, it is a different take on the traditional style of RSS reader, and as a result is probably the fastest RSS Reader to use out there.
Saves you lots of time.