A couple of years ago our graphic artist told me he only reads blogs and never goes to websites. Initially I didn’t understand what he meant by this until the last year or so I have become a huge fan of meaningful blogs. So much so that I’ve seen a new trend in my reading input. I rarely visit a website to just “check it out.” Either I go to a website to purchase something or find the blog (that is probably the website itself). At one point books were my main source of quality content but now I follow about 30 blogs. But with so many outstanding blogs to be had, I’m making a shift. Books, while still very necessary, are having less and less a role in my own personal growth. Better yet, some of my favorite authors have great blogs.
Because I’m a fan a good Apple technology, the next question that emerges for me is – what software/apps do I use take in all this content? (1) The first thing I did was to run all my blogs through Google Reader. Google reader is an online conduit for all the blogs I follow. GR also suggests other blogs that I might be interested in based on the ones I currently subscribe. (2) The next question I had was, how could I then follow my blogs on my iPhone? I spent 90 minutes on the plane the other day reading some of the best thinkers of our day on my iPhone using MobileRSS. This app allows me to suck down the blog while online and then read offline.
Part of centering our lives is to be able to streamline input and get as much value from the content as possible. This process has worked very well for me over the past months.
How do you capture the blogs you read? I would love some input on this.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Scott, I pull all of my blogs into Apple Mail and then I can read them all offline. The downside to that is that Mail indicates that you have new messages when a new blog is posted, which can make you feel like you need to stop and read the new blog post immediately. So the new posts are getting “pushed” to you and you have to react to it instead of going to a site, i.e. Google Reader, when you want to read blogs. Pros and cons to both, I guess.
Google Reader app on the iPhone is where I aggregate it all. Then, I read it on a porcelain throne.
My only challenge with Apple Mail has been the inability to sync my blogs with my iPhone. If you know of a way to make this work, I would love to hear your thoughts…
Funny!
I use Google Reader as well. But I use the “Next” gadget that you can drag to your toolbar (especially easy if you use Firefox). That way, when I catch up on my blogroll, I click “Next” and it brings me right to the blog. So no clicking through again to comment.