About a year ago, I switched completely to RSS. Everyone should use Google Reader, it is simply the best method of collecting and organizing all the websites you read. Consider this: with Reader I can track about 100 different websites from one web page.

At this point, every morning I check 2 email accounts, and Google Reader. Down from probably 20 or 30 different news sources before RSS. The only other sites I go to, outside the above three are newspaper websites and forums that I don't think lend themselves well to reading via RSS.

I use RSS (via Google Reader) for almost any periodic content, particularly news service feeds (Reuters, UPI), web comics, web serials, and blogs (including Fast Forward and Faster Forward). Currently that's 161 feeds. I'd use it for more except that some of the sites that interest me don't have feeds.

One of the reasons why sites don't do feeds is that they live and die by advertising, and there's a perception that feeds cut down on page views (particularly thanks to feed caches like Google Reader, where there may be thousands of readers for a single feed). Personally, I think that's flawed logic -- if you're only giving a 1-2 sentence tease in your feed, AND your content is of interest, people will click the link to view your site's page. If the article isn't interesting, then there's no loss of revenue (except perhaps for front page advertising) and you can even make that back by serving ads in the feed itself.

It all depends on how the sites with the feeds structure their content in the feed. If you only get a teaser, it may not work well for frequently updated content. However, I use it very successfully for a forum with frequent updates that includes all of the content in the feed. It allows me to see everything on the site in a timely fashion on my desktop without having to go to the site. Also, I track infrequently changing sites using newsfeeds.

I find the feeds very useful. I use a client-side news reader (Feedreader) as well as Google Reader for those times that I'm using a computer that does not have my news reader set up to capture my feeds.

I look forward to trying Newsgator in the future. I tried Feedreader early on and it worked for my purposes so I was not motivated to fix something that did not seem to be "broken."

Google Reader (well, iGoogle, to be particular) for a select few, and then bookmarks for a wider range that I view when I have the time.

I haven't used bookmarks for years except for things that defy searching like the timesheet system at work. Sometimes I bookmark things, but I rarely go back to the bookmarks, especially now that Firefox remembers where you left off.

I used to use My Yahoo to manage a small set of on-line bookmarks and I just search for everything else - it is about as fast to search and it works on any computer, not just the one I've set up the bookmarks on.

I've recently taken to RSS feeds, but that leaves a little to be desired because there is a disconnect in Yahoo between My Yahoo and the RSS reader - things show up in one and not the other. I've been using Yahoo forever and I've got too much invested in it to switch wholly to Google.

Generally I don't really want to get more than about 2-3 updates per day from a site I follow with an RSS feed; if there are more I just use a bookmark. If there are too many RSS updates I just end up ignoring them, which eliminates the point of the feed.

I also prefer sites that send the entire article to the feed reader rather than just the headline or first couple of lines. It used to really bug me when there was only part of a story; I'm getting over that but I'm still more likely to read an entire article if it's right in front of me than if I have to click to another site. I know, I know, it's just a click, but that's the way I am.

Interesting blog given that most of the RSS issues that I've had are from the Washington Post. For example a couple weeks ago, the opinion article RSS feed stopped sending over new articles.

I've bookmarked this article and comments!

Seriously, I had never heard of RSS feeds until a job posting mentioned it recently. I'm trying to learn more about RSS, so thanks for all of the comments and information.

I'm fairly internet savvy, but apparently, I missed the boat on this one!

I have about a dozen feeds that I've bookmarked in Firefox. Those that update infrequently I post as Google Web Clips.

I use the RSS function that is built into IE7.

I use it for "breaking news", new items that I will want to read right away.

For my routine reading, I use Bookmarks.

I finally made the jump to Netvibes last fall. You can set up your web page there to pick up RSS feeds or create links to your favorite sites. You can also embed webpages within the same page. I have a mix of links, web pages, and RSS feeds grouped by category. It takes a while to set it up, but once I did it made my Internet reading much more efficient.

Maybe I'm just one of the few who has never really found the need to use RSS. I have my main pages bookmarked, and I either use the bookmark or search for the site in Yahoo's search engine. I generally use Yahoo for both my news and as my default search engine. There is plenty of varied news on this one site for me, and I can just go back to that site when I want updates or new stories.

Now, that said, Yahoo news in its own right is practically RSS, considering they get their news from multiple sources online as well (UPI, Reuters, AP, Washington Post, etc.). So I guess I don't personally use RSS, except in the most indirect way.

I think RSS feeds and bookmarks cover different kinds of information. RSS appears to work for news, although some sites feed the same article over and over. I use bookmarks for other information, for example; IMBD for movies, Edmunds for cars, Thomas.gov for Congress. To me they are complimentary.

What about sites where 80% of the RSS feeds inexplicably crap out on you (save this, Richard Cohen, Raw Fisher and DC Sports Bog) forcing you to remove them and you are so annoyed that you don't feel like going back and adding all those RSS feeds again? Bookmark or RSS?

Right now, I'm voting bookmark.

Similarly, anyone working with O2K7....have you had problems with any web sites and RSS feeds (WaPost and Houston Chronicle have been giving me fits).

I agree with you on many points in your discussion. There are in fact several cases in which Bookmarks may be more beneficial than RSS Feeds; however, I would argue that as the nature of technology is changing, people are looking for rapid, transparent access to the information they are seeking. Taking the time to revisit pages manually by referencing a list of Bookmarks that for some people, is likely over 200 sites long, is an inconvenience to say the least.

If you are interested in learning more about RSS basics, when and why RSS Feeds are better than Bookmarks, and how to subscribe to RSS Feeds, please visit: Everything You Need to Know About RSS

I use a little text file called Locates to record the spot I'm interested in in a site. Every subject directory I keep has a locates file that I can update easily.

The browser I use supports groups, so I organize my web sites by groups as well as using bookmarks.

Disclaimer: I'm from aiderss.com

Rob, we found that a lot of our users use AideRSS to filter the 'high post frequency' web-sites exactly for the reasons you've described. And the best part is, you can use our filtered feeds in any feed reader.

Needless to say, we firmly believe that the bookmarks model doesn't scale, and RSS is the way to go.

Ilya

RSS feeds as bookmarks in Safari. it's a hybrid between the two that works for me.

Best thing ever is saving your RSS feeds as live bookmark links on the bookmark toolbar in Firefox.

It gives you a supremely elegant list of headlines when you mouse over any of the feed links.

Unlike Explorer which takes about 3 clicks to see your RSS feeds, and then in a very clunky format.