On a visit to the Download Squad earlier I chanced upon this video of a Google Tech Talk by Merlin Mann, creator of the popular 43 folders website.
Rather than send you a click further away I’ve hosted a copy of it here if you have an hour to spend.
He is quite a charismatic speaker and my hour was soon over. I specially liked his reference to rss feeds when he suggests both feeds and email tend to suck the time out of our days. I for one am seriously thinking of just reading my email and feeds just a few times per day and actually doing stuff the rest of the day. There again I’m a very good procrastinator in search of disciplined ways of getting things done.
This is something that you probably should have told me (but why would you have done that) a long time ago. I visit a lot of sites per day. I use(d) Netvibes as my start page because I love the magic of having the same start page over multiple sites and platforms.
I have a sidebar on my blog with the blogs of friends that I visit.
I’ve been on the web before it became the web (long story) and I’m an early adopter when it comes to buying into new technology. Specially when it comes to gadgets!
Some things take longer to sink in and although I’m a little ashamed I admit that I saw a poll today of how people read their feeds It was from reading the results that I learnt that most people use a web-based reader and a lot of them pick Google Reader.
I may be a little thick at times but I don’t think I’m an idiot or can’t change my mind on something so I’ve just set it up.
Although I’ll keep using Netvibes for all non feed related widgets I’m crossing over to the other side and adopting Google reader.
I honestly think that it will save me time and that is what we all have as a precious commodity. I think I will also just consult it a few times a day. The other problem with Netvibes is that the feeds are there but you have to reclick many times to get where you want to go.
I like to think of it as being the difference between going around your neighborhood looking for stuff and looking in all the shop windows or just having all that news delivered to your doorstep.
I’ll give you an update in a few days but would welcome any input or advice you could give me.
I often wonder if my dedicated readers just watch my feeds or actually visit or under what conditions they physically visit the blog.