Reader addiction

I spend a lot of time in Google Reader trying to keep on top of technology. After trying a couple of desktop based RSS-readers (GreatNews & Liferea) I switched to a web-based solution. Man, I LOVE flex-offices!

I’m not really into Web 2.0 hype but in this case I actually find the community features really useful…

For my current job, for example, I’m working on a “knowledge hub” for Microsoft Exchange. I’m not supposed to know everything myself, but the more the better obviously. Hence I subscribed to about 37 blogs covering the matter.

While I’m enjoying my time in Reader I’m tagging the interesting entries in these feeds with a specific tag. This also allows me to do some deduplication, as there’s really no benefit in having 10 “SP1 is out!”-entries. This tag is shared and the RSS feed for it is incorporated in my personal Sharepoint site, the MS Exchange specific Sharepoint site and this blog (see bottom right). Efficiency!

I’m using a similar system to share items with both my brother an my girlfriend. Both of them have their own tag and both of them subscribed to the corresponding feed in their reader account. That way I’m able to provide both of them with high quality shared items whereas the normal “share” feature would give them 50% noise.