How do you read blogs? If you're like most, you use an RSS aggregator. My favorite aggregator is Netvibes – a browser based aggregator built in France. It was announced last week that they got an additional round of funding from the founders of FON and Ning.
I like Netvibes alot and use it regularly. Many people have posted that it's just an incremental technology and essentially the same as MyYahoo. In my opinion, it's the same in that all email clients (AOL, Yahoo, and Gmail) are the same, but are vastly different in functionality. Netvibes is easier to add feeds, configure modules, and overall use. If you get a chance, check it out..
Updated: for those of you who aren't up to speed on RSS aggregators, check out the definition at Wikipedia here. The first paragraph begins…
Aggregators reduce the time and effort needed to regularly check websites of interest for updates, creating a unique information space or "personal newspaper." An aggregator is able to subscribe to a feed, check for new content at user-determined intervals, and retrieve the content. The content is sometimes described as being "pulled" to the subscriber, as opposed to "pushed" with email or IM. Unlike recipients of some "pushed" information, the aggregator user can easily unsubscribe from a feed.
Some of the blogs in my reader today are:
- Technology / News / Internet blogs
- News: O'Reilly, Yahoo Blog, Web 2.0 Show (podcast),
- People: Om Malik, Fred Wilson, danah boyd, Marc Canter, Graeme Thickens, Lawrence Lessig, Bradley Horwitz, Caterina, Marry Hodder, Charteuse, and Malcolm Gladwell
- Pop Culture Blogs
- Sports: The Sports Guy, Deadspin, Timberwolves Blog
- Movies: Aint It Cool News, IMDB StudioBrief, Cinematical, Ebert,
- Random: Moose's Blog, VH1 Best Week Ever! Blog, Drew Mowery's Subject to Blackout Blog
