RSS and Bookmarks, The One-Two Punch.

I recently spent a few hours going through my bookmarks, verifying they were still good, checking if it’s something I still wanted to bookmark, and then adding tags to get them organized.

While sorting through the folders that I had my bookmarks in, I came across some sites that I had forgotten about, sites that are of a blog style, where they get updated on a fairly regular basis. A couple were actual blogs, like a the LiveJournal site of a friend, others were informational sites that used blog software as their core content management system.

When these sites had first been bookmarked, I was not using an RSS feed reader like I do now, so it got me thinking about how a reader and bookmarks need to work together - I already feel like I have a bit of information overload at times, and my bookmarks were so cluttered, keeping up with those sites would have … well was about impossible.

Bookmarks just aren’t meant for keeping track of sites with changing content. I think bookmarks are for things you know you will need at some point, but it isn’t like you are pulling them out every day… every week, or maybe even every month. They are there when you need them.

RSS Feeds on the other hand, that’s where all the new stuff is. It’s like your email inbox. With a feed reader, websites are able to send you a note that they have something new. In your reader you scan the titles like you do to the subject lines in your email, skipping over or deleting those you don’t want to read.

If you rely just on bookmarks to track everything, you are going to waste a lot of time and invariably miss something. That’s why I see combining the two as a one-two punch for keeping that sense of information overload at bay.

If you have not jumped on the RSS bandwagon, you should. I do recommend Bloglines, but I then again, I have not really tried anything else other than Sage for Firefox. The ultimate point is to find something that works for you.

Once you’ve picked your reader, go through your bookmarks, maybe as part of migrating to using the Bookmark Tags addon for Firefox, any site you’ve bookmarked that has a feed, add it to your reader and keep them organized. I group mine by general topic, things like; Computer Software, Computer Hardware, Technology, General News, Productivity, Friend’s and the like.

Now you will know exactly when one of those sites has something new to offer. You can check them daily, weekly, or whenever, and you will not miss what was posted. Then when you get to to it, scan the headlines looking for those items of specific interest to you and skip the rest, deleting them or marking as read depending on how your reader works.

Bloglines has a way to ‘pin’ articles I like so I can find them easier again. I was using this… but am now using my tagged bookmarks as a better way to keep track of them. Basically, when I find something I want to keep for reference, I bookmark that specific item. With Bookmark Tags, I can tag the link with words that will help me find that link when I need it later. And consider bookmarking the blog entry, not the final destination. I do this because often the comments from other readers can give you some great tips or suggestions to go along with what you’re linking tool.

It is still early in the process for me on this, but I can see this is going to keep my bookmarks a bit more organized as well as make it easier to not just keep up with the incoming flow of information, but find something later when I need to.