Stephan Miller

One Way to Speed Up Your Feed Reading

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A feed reader is supposed to speed things up. You don’t have to visit the blog to read what’s been published.

That’s how mine started and somehow I have managed to collect over 2000 feeds which I have categorized along the way:

• Advertising
• Affiliate
• Blogging
• Design
• Developer
• Forums
• Internet Marketing and Make Money
• Money (finance)
• Productivity and Freelance
• SEO
• Social Media
• Tech
• Thinkers
• Upcoming and Memes
• Wordpress
• Writing

Didn’t mean to do this. It just sort of happened that way. It is impossible to read 2000 feeds. No matter which feed reader I use, it’s click, wait while the reader semi-locks-up and then read. So here is what I did:

Step 1: Export each category as a separate OPML file.

An OPML file is a collection of rss feeds that can be imported and exported from a feed reader. Since I had the feeds already in folders, I created topic specific OPML files.

Step 2: Import each OPML file into a separate feed at FeedHub.

Feedhub is a damn good service that will take an OPML file and turn it into one feed. I have one Feedhub feed that have 750 feeds in it. When it comes out, it’s one feed. It seems to be unlimited both in the amount of custom feeds you can build and the amount of feeds you can put in one custom feed.

Yes, you could skip this step and move on to the next, but by running the feeds through Feedhub you get a bit of filtering and it learns what you like over time.

Step 3: Put the feeds on Netvibes.

Image via CrunchBase

I believe that when two services do about the same job, like NetVibes and iGoogle, something as simple as the font size, color scheme or layout of the default theme can swing a decision. That may be what happened here. You could actually use any type of start page system that will display feed widgets. Netvibes just had the right vibe.

Not a useful hack for everyone but if you end up trying to single-handedly index the blogosphere, it may help. And it doesn’t take too long to set up. I did it while I wrote this post. I need to organize them more effectively and some of the feeds may have very few entries because they are new, but you can see the initial results here.

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Category: Feeds, Software | Tags: Aggregator, feed reader, FeedHub, igoogle, netvibes, opml, rss |

18 Responses to “One Way to Speed Up Your Feed Reading”

1. Alex Sysoef (5 comments.) says:

   December 29, 2008 at 6:30 am

   Nice tip Stephen,

   I’m in same boat where reading takes too much time and your tip is appreciated. Gives me an idea or two!
2. Stephan Miller says:

   December 29, 2008 at 7:37 am

   It’s the best way I have found until I get a gaming computer to run my feed reader, lol.
3. Bruce > The Big Desk (5 comments.) says:

   December 29, 2008 at 10:06 am

   I had a similar problem last year with my feeds getting out of control. I didn’t have any time to try and manage them properly so I decided to start from scratch and deleted everything. Now I only add a feed after some consideration, organize them into categories as they are added and I won’t go over 100 this time. As I add more I also prune out the ones that no longer interest me. Some my find that 200 or only 50 is a more comfortable level.
   As you can see by my quickness to comment This blog has remained amongst my favorites!

   Bruce
4. Sean Ammirati (1 comments.) says:

   December 29, 2008 at 10:33 am

   Hi Stephan,

   Great post! Glad to hear that FeedHub is working so well for you. As always, please let me know if you have any feedback on the service.

   – Sean
   mSpoke (creator of FeedHub)
5. Jack Payne (1 comments.) says:

   December 29, 2008 at 4:03 pm

   A great bunch of new ideas.

   Thanks, Stephen
6. Stephan Miller says:

   December 30, 2008 at 6:44 am

   @Bruce I am honored to be one of those feeds. I think I have issues. I need to do the same and just cut and burn some feeds, but I can’t yet toss the “What if I miss something?” nagging me in my head.

   @Sean Great service. Beats the other ones competing with you for what I use it for.

   @Jack Thanks!
7. HIFU (1 comments.) says:

   December 30, 2008 at 11:32 am

   I have over 900 feeds in my google reader. I’m not looking forward to reading any of them. maybe an information diet would be best for 2009!
8. Ratgeber Gesundheit (1 comments.) says:

   January 1, 2009 at 12:16 am

   A list worth remembering. I follow the way you do things up. You’re so energetic to have listed the best ways to speed up reading feeds. For a fast reader like me, this is a great help.
9. jessica ciotti (1 comments.) says:

   January 1, 2009 at 6:31 am

   nice post,
   useful resources,

   thanks Stephan Miller
10. Dean Thompson (1 comments.) says:

    January 2, 2009 at 2:17 pm

    As mSpoke’s CTO, I love the compliments (thanks, Stephan!), and can’t resist explaining how one of Stephan’s steps can be simplified:

    If you already have your feeds organized into a hierarchy, and if your feed reader includes that hierarchy when it exports your OPML (it should!), then there is no reason to create a separate OPML for each FeedHub personalized feed.

    Instead, just upload your whole OPML file when creating your first FeedHub personalized feed. When FeedHub asks you to choose the sources for that personalized feed, there’s a checkbox for each entire category, in addition to the checkboxes for the individual sources.

    Then, each time you create an additional personalized feed, FeedHub allows you to use the same OPML file without uploading it again. Just check off the categories and/or individual sources that you want to include in each new personalized feed that you create.
11. Sid Burgess (1 comments.) says:

    January 2, 2009 at 11:55 pm

    I totally understand. For some reason, some how I have hundreds of feeds now and I am not quite sure what to do with them all. It is quite impossible to read them all. Thanks for the tips, going to look into feedhub.
12. Web Design Company (1 comments.) says:

    January 3, 2009 at 2:05 pm

    Thanks for sharing. I face the same problem as others by not being able to keep up with all the posts due to lack of time. I will give this a try for sure as being an actove blog particpant and blog owner, managing my time and being able to review the posts in my feedreader is an important element of my strategy.
13. Bill M (5 comments.) says:

    January 3, 2009 at 7:24 pm

    I personally use my.yahoo and it has a good feed aggregator too.
14. Stephan Miller says:

    January 4, 2009 at 9:55 am

    Thanks for coming by everyone!

    @Dean Never thought of that. It would be easier.
15. Jeet (6 comments.) says:

    January 26, 2009 at 6:47 am

    I stick to google reader mostly, and also use firefox’s subscription methods (which let’s me subscribe in google reader). 2000 RSS feeds, do you get to do anything else in the day

    I just have blogs I follow, friends blogs and photoblogs (these include comic blogs). Any feed reader would crumble if everyone starts having 2000 feeds
16. Stephan Miller says:

    January 26, 2009 at 7:21 am

    I have found a new tool for this, LOL. I will be writing a post on it. And yes, I do get other things done. I have to limit myself.
17. Jeet (6 comments.) says:

    January 27, 2009 at 6:10 pm

    Wow that’s cool. Will wait to hear from you about the new tool. Is it an online tool or desktop application?
18. Stephan Miller says:

    February 3, 2009 at 10:22 am

    Feedly. It’s pretty amazing. It may use a bit of memory but it is the only thing so far that I have tried that works without a hitch, lag, or freezing the computer for a few seconds.