Mod the Web

Through friends, colleagues and dumb luck, I've recently come across some cool web tools you may also find useful.

Chances are, you already know about RSS feeds, and how you can bookmark such feeds so that you can stay on top of the latest headlines? Well, Google has released "Reader", a program that allows you to manage all of your RSS feeds easily, even allowing you to quickly share a headline with friends via email or your blog (did you notice the "Bexy's latest distractions" box on the right-hand column? This was so easy to set up anyone can do it).

You can also use Reader to subscribe to your friends' blogs, and sort the material by the most recent post, so that you can never miss their latest posts. Reader has a similar drawback to TiVo: suddenly because you can tape a re-run of The X-Files that airs at 2 a.m., you do, and before you know it you're recording 8 hours of TV every day. With Reader, you can subscribe to a crapload of sites, allowing you to see at a glance all of the new articles out in the InterWebs, waiting for your swift attention. I applaud you if you can avoid the temptation to read them all, especially when you should be working!

I mentioned in an earlier post Adobe's new "myFeedz" web-sifting service. After using it for a couple of weeks now, I've noticed that I'm referred to the same sites repeatedly - maybe I should change my tags. The upside of this, however, is that after reading one cool article after another at a given site, I end up adding that site to my bookmarks (or, my Reader page!).

Lastly, my friend Mark told me about a Firefox plug-in called Clipmarks. This is really cool! You can simply review what Clipmarks users are "clipping" (excerpting via the Clipmarks site) or "popping" (think: Digging), to see what is flowing up to the top of the Web. Or, you can easily clip articles, photos and even videos and email those clips to your friends, or post them to your blog.

Now, there is a tendency for the same articles to get the top of these lists, probably because of the power of Digg. Maybe, though, as more sites like Digg, Clipmarks and myFeedz pop up, some light will be shed on the more obscure sites and links we otherwise would miss, taking us deeper into the depths of the web.