Friday, July 08, 2005
Information overload and time management
As a small business owner, website developer and self made news aggregator, I am finding it increasingly difficult to wade through the vast amount of information available to extract the jewel I need or want. So much is available online that my bookmarks, favorites, desktop icons, explorer bar and link lists have taken over my workspace. Throw in a few million blog and RSS feeds one can get easily overwhelmed. So I have done like most people and simply visited websites as I remembered and missed some really cool stuff.
I wrote a while back about RSS feed readers and the recommended software from Blogger. I have some experience with one of the companies so I decided to try it. Actually, I tried two. http://www.newsgator.com/ which is a free online reader with some neat set ups and the windows application FeedDemon. (The latter has recently been acquired by NewsGator.)
NewsGator has a free version that I decided to sign up for and try out. I thought it was easy, especially convenient in that they have some of the most popular newsfeed already categorized and all you have to do is select it. It's completely browser based and ready to go. I like it so far however, there seems to be a lag between the time something is posted to a blog and when it showed up in the list. I also found that this blog archive doesn't show up in the older topics category.
FeedDemon is the one you have to download and install. It costs $30 but there is a 30 day free trial. This is a software company that I am familiar with because they also produce a product that I use in development of websites. It installed flawlessly and it too had some popular feeds already configured. I didn't play with it too long but I could tell it would reduce the amount of time that I spend running around reading headlines. If course, the Daily News does not have an RSS yet, but I'll be willing to bet they will soon.
I had a meeting with a potential client this morning and we discussed the ways to integrate site updates, RSS and subscription services. I really believe that new and updated websites will offer all three methods of communication and the company that develops a clean interactive user interface will capture a larger market. That is exactly what I am attempting to accomplish for all of my existing clients.
