So many blogs, so little time. Here are some ways to keep track of your favorite blogs all in one place.
Many blogs support Really Simple Syndication, or RSS feeds. RSS allows a website to list excerpts and titles of recently changed or added material so that specialized readers (known unsurprisingly as “RSS readers”) to pick up the feeds and list them out. Most blogs now support RSS, so with an RSS reader you can keep track of the latest posts to your blog list quite easily.
There are many RSS readers out there, but perhaps one of the most convenient is a plug-in for the Firefox browser. It lets you keep your normal web browsing and RSS browsing all in one place. It’s a simple download and install if you’re running Firefox. Once installed, you can tell it which blogs to follow, and every morning as the coffee’s brewing you can look over the previous day’s posts one by one quickly and easily. Click the Firefox icon to get more information about the RSS plugin.
Another popular reader is Google Reader. It works in a similar fashion to the Firefox pluggin, with tools to sort, save, and view posts. Speaking of Google, perhaps the simplest, albeit the least feature-rich blog aggregator is a part of iGoogle. iGoogle is also a general website aggregator, offering many features and plug-in modules. The blog reader module that I use simply lists the blog posts in chronological order, letting me view them at a glance as a popup window by clicking on the post title, or view the post in it’s original blog by clicking the “Show Original Item” link in the popup. There are no frills with the iGoogle version of Google Reader, but for people who just want the facts, it’s a great alternative. Click the iGoogle logo to get more information about iGoogle and Google Reader.
iGoogle Reader Popup Window
April 19, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Here’s a good thing . . ….
In order to complete my assignment this week, I need to create a trackback on my personal blog (here) to a classmate’s group blog. The good thing is that there is a trackback on James’ and Jeff’s Web 2.0 Aggregators blog, so I can com…
April 19, 2009 at 5:31 pm
NetNewsWire is another great one, but I think it only works on Mac.
April 20, 2009 at 11:17 am
If you decide to leave this up past the class and/or remname it, be sure to let me know. This a a great little piece that I would like to give to my students — but especially to some of our veteran teachers who just don’t get it.
It’s got me thinking, though: Even with the aggregators, how do we keep up with all this stuff?
April 20, 2009 at 7:04 pm
Exactly Tracy, and Giovanna was discussing the same thing with me earlier. It’s going to be a challenge no matter how much “aggregation” we can work out. There’s just so much information flying around the web all of the time, and new ways to shoot and receive that information, that you really just have to find something that works for you and stick with it until you, at your pace, find something else that works better. It can put a damper on relationships though, as friends and acquaintances opt for applications that you don’t.