How do you organize your blog reads?
While using the bookmarks tab on my browser is helpful in marking interesting websites, I prefer using my news aggregator a.k.a. feeds manager in managing by blog reads.
There are a lot of online services that track the blogs you’re interested in such as Kinja, Google Reader and Bloglines. They’re quite simple to use — just identify which blogs you want to follow and their corresponding feeds (RSS? ATOM?). Subscribe to their feeds and your aggregator will check those for updates. (If you’d like to know more about how this works, Steph of Back in skinny jeans explains this really well in this entry.)
In a nutshell, when your favorite blog reads publish a new entry, you’ll know right away! No need to go back to your bookmarks and manually check each blog. That’s so time-consuming! Thank goodness for feeds.
I follow a mix of blogs with the following themes — beauty & fashion, entertainment, poetry, design, food, personal, productivity, travel and Twilight-related. I used to have them in one huge clump – e.g. gossip blogs mixed with food. This worked fine with me at first, but when I needed to read a blog with a specific theme, I’d have to sift through all the updated feeds to get to the blog with the theme I wanted. Again, I wanted to manage my bloghopping time better.
Hence, folders. Folders labeled according to the themes I love. When there’s an update under Personal, I head on over to its folder and check out the blogs with new updates.
Here’s how the Personal Blogs folder branches out. The numbers in bold indicate the number of updated entries each blog has that I have yet to read. As you can see, I am way behind on my bloghopping.
So this is how I organize my blog reads. I do this because it helps me manage my time better, and when hit with a specific mood, I can go straight to the folder that matches my mood. All I want to do is read on new news about The Office, Ugly Betty or TMZ? I head on over to the Entertainment folder.
It’s pretty simple and straightforward. And yes, a tad O.C. I know, but giving my bloghopping some structure works for me.
How do you manage your blog reads? Do you organize it in anyway or are all the blogs in one blog roll? What works for you?
February 29th, 2008 at 2:26 am
i use Bloglines, got it from you actually.
but i have everyone in one folder, i should probably try organizing them more, instead of jumping from, say, showbiz, to a food blog in one short sitting.
February 29th, 2008 at 2:39 am
Thanks to you, I’m a bloglines convert. I have to figure out how to organize my folders though.
February 29th, 2008 at 7:17 am
I used Google Reader but it was hard to keep track when there are a lot of blogs listed. I’m not sure if it can be categorized and sorted into folders. Will find out. If not, I might check out Bloglines, seems cool.
Now, I mostly check blogs manually for updates.
February 29th, 2008 at 7:43 am
Manually, the blog links on my blog are more for me than for my readers. I think I’m gonna try bloglines.
February 29th, 2008 at 8:45 am
like you, bloglines din.
i think 2+ years ko na yata gamit yan, eversince i couldn’t keep up with my ever growing list of fave blog reads, hehe. pero i havent arranged them into folders – alphabetical ang sa akin hehe. 
February 29th, 2008 at 9:54 am
hi po! anybody tried yahoo pipes? pipes.yahoo.com
February 29th, 2008 at 11:29 am
Bloglines for me too…
Happy weekend! TGIF.
February 29th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
I think I’ll take your lead and get on to Bloglines too. I haven’t been blogging too long but my bloghopping habits are getting worse, almost bordering on obssessive-compulsive. I must spend an hour or two each morning just checking on the blogs I read (yours included)! And that’s considering I have to cook, teach, clean, and organize my household at the same time! (I’m trying to invent a laptop neck holder so one can carry the laptop everywhere, sans hands, complete with cooler fan, holder for extra batteries- at least only until I can come up with a solar-powered cell in the holder for recharging your laptop while one hangs clothes under the sun. Whew! That was a mouthful!)
I always find something to spice up my day in your blog, be it Twilight, or Sims, or weird gadgets, or tips. To show my gratitude, allow me to present you with a friendship award (http://okasaneko.wordpress.com/2008/02/29/friendships-are-the-oscars-for-my-soul/). I always feel like I’m just visiting a neighbor whenever I drop by.
Have a happy weekend!
February 29th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
I don’t. Hehe … I just browse and keep note of the really few that I like.
March 1st, 2008 at 9:16 pm
hi there. i use bloglines too. i used to just use the one that comes with my browser, Flock, but when i’m at the office i’m not updated so good thing i found out about bloglines. hmm i didnt know you could organize them by topic.
March 21st, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Feed readers do help a lot as it saves time in reading blogs (especially in my case).