Is Your Feed Reader Becoming Boring?

Jan 13 2009 Comments

Google Reader Logo Kevin Muldoon posed a great question about how much we might rely on feed readers. Do we do it? I think the average blogger does.

However, my feed reader has been getting very boring to me lately so I rely less on it than I used to. Maybe it’s the content. Maybe it’s the interface of Google Reader. Maybe it’s the limited feature set; there isn’t much that you can do with a feed reader besides…well…read. Maybe I have ADD. Either way, it’s been boring for months now regardless of how many new feeds I subscribe to. So what do you do about it?

Evaluate The Problem

chalkboard First, you figure out what’s making it so boring. Are you just sick of the interface and the limited amount of things you can do with your feed reader? Is the content that you’re subscribed to a bit…boring? Find out the source of the problem and then attempt to address it.

Problem Content

Social Networks Sometimes you may just need to look for information elsewhere. Lately, FriendFeed, Twitter, & StumbleUpon have been the best places for me to find new content to check out. I’ve also started looking at trackbacks for content that I thoroughly enjoyed reading. Technorati & Yacktrack are great for catching every trackback.

You have to branch out. Read the blogs that people are recommending, go where the content is, check out who your favorite bloggers are mentioning and linking to and not only will you not rely on your feed reader for news, you wouldn’t worry about becoming bored with it either.

Problem Programs

feeddemon Google Reader isn’t the only RSS reader you know. In fact, if I didn’t have such a history with Google Reader, FeedDemon would be my choice of feed readers. Why? This feed reader has an absurd amount of features that makes feed reading that much more interesting. This is a program that makes me want to share content that isn’t even worth sharing because the features are just that friggin cool.

Don’t just go with the crowd. Explore the space of RSS readers and find which one really suits you and your needs.

What’s Your Problem?

Found the root of your problem? Good! Now tell me what will you do to make your feed reader more interesting?


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  • CantEvenGo
    Corvida,

    I think it's the style of presentation. I've tried lots of RSS readers (mac), and the static style of presentation doesn't work for me - it's too hierarchical, keeps me in a rigid reading pattern, and forces me to do more work to find new content from unexpected sources.

    this isn't for everyone, but i can't live without Snackr. It's a news-ticker style feed reader that's synced to my Google Reader account, and it helps me discover new stuff every day.

    anytime i come across an interesting blog, i subscribe to it with GR. i keep snackr open all the time (i'm currently pushing over 200 feeds now) and it scrolls new items from a random selection of blogs across the bottom of my screen. i see more stuff from blogs i wouldn't usually see, and when i come across good stuff i'll open the post in my browser.

    Snackr requires Adobe Air, and some people complain about memory usage, but as a change of pace i'd highly recommend it
  • I'm aware of Snackr. Marshall Kirkpatrick wrote about it on ReadWriteWeb. It's a great tool, but I'm not much of a ticker person myself to be honest. It takes up to much screen estate for me.

    I agree though that the presentation manner could definitely play a role in the "boringness" of it all. Google Reader isn't the best for finding new content. Feedly would probably be better.
  • I use Google Reader for the semi-social part of it. Otherwise, I'd probably use NetNewsWire.

    Btw.. Corvida... You might want to check your FeedDeamon link. It goes to a 404 on your site.

    -Adam
  • Yes the social part has me hooked in too.

    Fixed the link! Thanks for pointing it out.
  • No problem.

    Feel free to e-mail me if you want my google name to see my shared stuff. (Or just subscribe to my FriendFeed.)

    -Adam
  • I like Regator. It's not really a feed reader, but I can still import my feeds and it helps me find new blogs if I get bored. Blogs that someone has hand-picked for quality.

    Also, I'm a FriendFeed addict so I get a lot of stuff from there. :)
  • neoCarla
    Since leaving Bloglines quite some time ago, Google Reader has been what I really like. I must admit that the user interface IS quite blah, but the ease of use was all I needed, so I continued to use it. And within a few months of using it, I can't remember how, but I came across two Greasemonkey scripts that seemed liked winners. Helvetireader, and Show Feed Favicons. So I installed them, and I was very impressed. They made my Google Reader look a lot less blah.

    With all that said, I think those little scripts are worth a try-out.
  • prattmic
    You could also check out feedly. It is a firefox extension that uses GR as a backend, and lets you have more of a magazine style view. It also incorporates comments (from some blogs), sharing, friendfeed, twitter, digg, flickr, ect.

    http://www.feedly.com/
  • I meant to mention feedly. I was just giving a general overview though. I kind of wanted my audience to branch out and do the research themselves.
  • Thanks for the nice mention of FeedDemon, Corvida!
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