How do you use Feedbin?

#1

Thanks to a few posts here, I’ve just started setting up to use Feedbin as a way to read my email newsletters in a “nicer” place than my email client. I’ve also read about Federico doing this in Macstories.

I’m wondering how else people are using Feedbin? I’m (so happily!) using NetNewsWire now that it’s back for RSS, so do I just treat Feedbin as the back-end to NetNewsWire? They seem to tout that on the Feedbin site, but I can’t totally get the why on that.

I’ve already googled “Feedbin best practices” to no avail, so perhaps it’s too small/niche to find many people with advice, but I thought you all may be my target group. Thanks for any tips!

1 Like
#2

The advantage of using Feedbin as the backend on NNW is that it then syncs everything between your devices. I’m finding it pretty good - but I was a heavy Google Reader user back in the day and used that as my backend then.

1 Like
#3

This is why I love Reeder. Nice iPadOS update for it as well as it takes advantage of mouse/touchpad support now!

2 Likes
#4

Oh right, I’ve only been using NetNewsWire on my phone so far, I forgot about what’ll happen when I move to my iPad. You’ve both helped me find that why I couldn’t figure out!

#5

I use Inoreader rather than Feedbin, but I’m going to contribute here anyway because RSS readers are similar. Particularly Feedbin and Inoreader. Here are a few ideas that work for me.

Most important: RSS is not email. You don’t have to read every item, and you should not. Dave Winer said that, and he invented RSS, so he should know. He calls it the “river of news.”

The feeds I subscribe to generate thousands and thousands and thousands of items every day. If a feed looks mildly interesting, I subscribe. Of those thousands and thousands and thousands of items, I look at a few hundred at MOST and read maybe a dozen. This is intentional.

More:

Newsletters: I had newsletters forwarded to RSS but I just didn’t see the point anymore and it was another complication so I stopped. It’s all the same screen so what’s the difference?

Favorites: I have a folder called “Fav” in which I have RSS feeds where I want to be sure to see every message. That’s an exception to my “river of news” rule above.

Twitter: I use Inoreader to read selected Twitter accounts. I have a Twitter list called “VIP” for Twitter users for whom I want to see every single tweet. Otherwise, I treat twitter like a river, same as RSS. I subscribe to the VIP list on Inoreader.

I’m pretty sure Feedbin lets you subscribe to Twitter feeds, but it may not let you subscribe to Twitter lists.

Tech & local news: I have another folder for a combination of tech and local news. I check that folder several times a week and spend a lot of time reading it thoroughly when I do. That folder is called, unimaginatively, “Fav + Cloud + Apple + San Diego.”

"Magic" sorting: Inoreader has a “magic” sorting feature, which sorts items by how interesting its algorithms thinks an item will be for you. It looks at how popular each item is across the broad range of Inoreader users, and how often you read items in that particular feed.

I have that sort order switched on for the “Fav + Cloud + Apple + San Diego” folder.

Politics: I subscribe to a lot of political feeds, but I do not read them often. I read them when I want to get angry. :angry: :right_anger_bubble:

Automatically mark read: I have Inoreader configured for my tech and mainstream news feeds to mark items older than two days as read.

Rules: I hardly use any automated rules and filters. One that may be of interest here: I have a rule set up to send me an iPhone notification when a new episode of MPU goes live.

While I do love RSS and have loved it for nearly 20 years, I don’t rely on it for my morning news. For that, I check Google News and Apple News.

1 Like