The first part of the assignment is to set up a feed reader. I’ve used a variety of feed readers, from desktop readers to online readers, and by far I prefer the online readers. The mobility alone makes them a winner, since I read feeds using several different computers. Here’s my current OPML file, which has been slightly edited and reorganized for public consumption (i.e. you don’t need to know about my ego feeds).
Over the years, have had to cull my feeds periodically. There are several news sites or blogs that I would love to be able to keep up with, but I don’t have the time to process the volume of content they generate on a daily basis. Currently, I have about 231 subscriptions, several of which are for dead feeds that I haven’t cleaned out yet.
I am perpetually behind on reading all of my subscriptions. There are a few that I hit regularly, but the rest are saved for times when I need to take my mind off of whatever problem I am working on at the moment. With this many feeds, RSS is a time shifting or bookmarking tool, and I’m okay with that. Twitter has become my source for the latest OMG news.
Like you, I prefer online readers. I often get stuck in situations I need to whip out my Treo and surf to Google Reader to avoid giving someone a piece of my mind :-).
I have 83 subcriptions, but if I don’t count my own blogs and the ones that haven’t updated in several months I really only have about 65. There are only a few where I read every post. With many of my feeds, I just skim the titles and read maybe 1 out of every 10 posts. I think that is because I subscribe to more aggregate feeds than personal blogs.