So I’m curious… how many of you use personalized start pages (i.e. Net Vibes, iGoogle, and PageFlakes), feed readers (i.e. Google Reader, Bloglines), or both?
I use both.
My feed reader (Google Reader) allows me to keep up with my world on a very micro level. I may check it once or twice a day. It tells me what’s going on with everyone from those I’m really close with to those who I’m not. It’s great for something with more then 35 feeds.
My start page (Net Vibes) helps me keep up with my world on a very macro level. I check this all the time. It’s usually open all the time. It tells me about what’s going on with with the people and things that are the MOST important to me. It’s great for less then 35 feeds.
I spend a lot of time sifting through fire houses of information. So I feel that I’ve gotten good and getting through my 500+ RSS feeds. I realize that I’m like less then 1 % of the population.
I’d bet around 15% of people feel comfortable with more then 35 feeds. I’d say about 85% are comfortable with less then 35 feeds.
So… yeah, what do you think? What tools do you use and for what?
Oatmeal Stout - Justin Thorp's blog 
I am a feed reader guy. I love Google reader. I think the start up pages like iGoogle and Netvibes are cluttered to visualize things quickly.
I use Google Reader as well. I love it with one exception: if you don’t read a feed for a while, it starts marking older posts as read. This is bad because some of the feeds I’m subscribed to have essay-length posts in them. You might say this is an abuse of the blogging medium, but these are low volume/high quality feeds I enjoy reading once in a while, but not always now.
(rant over)
I haven’t used startup pages in a while.
Wow, and I thought I was an RSS addict with just 120 feeds.
I use Google Reader. I agree with @Shaun that start pages feel cluttered. I’ve tried using offline readers such as Shrook or Endo, but found that I would neglect them since I tend to switch computers and seeing the same article multiple times is obnoxious.
However, I am surprised that with so many feeds you can get away with checking your reader so infrequently; I find that if I don’t check mine throughout the day, I fall behind. But then again, how many of the articles do you read in full?
Also, Joseph – Huh. I never noticed. Why don’t you just star the articles you want to come back to read later? Or do you just miss them entirely.
What a great question Justin and one that I’ve been wrestling with in the last couple of weeks. I’m a heavy user of Google Reader but considered going over to Netvibes. The problems with Netvibes was that I found it was a bit cranky when I was linking up my feeds from Google Reader so I’ve decided to momentarily leave it (i.e too much on to deal with this now)
I’ve been playing around a lot with Opera lately and am considering a “move” to using that as my main browser (lots of very good functionality built in that goes way beyond FireFox in many areas). That has an RSS in it so may use that.
@Joseph, @herbert is right about putting a star on articles to read later. That’s how I do it as there’s no way I can read what I want whenever I want unless it is no more than 140 character spaces….which reminds me. I often get my news quicker in Twitter than via RSS.
@Herbert, I already use stars to designate favorite posts, so that would get confusing.
It shouldn’t be difficult for them to add a control where I can turn this behavior off. I usually do get around to reading these posts before they “rot”, but sometimes I miss.
Both, iGoogle and Google Reader – was a big netvibes user, but google has taken over my life.
I use them differently. I use reader to quick get through 1000+ blogs, the in iGoogle I have tabs based on different topics that I am tracking or more likely to spend more time reading. Like I have a Friends tab with all the blogs of my friends that I want to be sure not to miss.
@Alex, you’re more in line with the way that I use these tools.
Hmm… yeah I’m fascinated by how people intake information.