RSS Habit

During the referendum campaign, my Twitter feed became unmanageable, to say the least. I’ve ended up following over a thousand accounts and the “noise” created from that is bananas.

I put up with it, intending to have a cull once the referendum was over. I really thought that everything would go “back to normal”, but it just hasn’t (not that I really mind; it’s great that most are staying politically engaged with the continuing debate).

The worst thing for me is the constant retweeting of tweets and articles that I’ve already seen some time ago. My twitter client already takes care of “repeat retweets” if they’re already in my current timeline, but those that pop up from a few days ago are still there and still annoying.

I’ve also found myself using Facebook a lot more in the last few months (fighting against the hatred of myself in doing so), chiefly because most of my YES campaign pals are only on there (apparently they don’t “understand” Twitter. If only I’d been given a pound for every time I’d heard that one. I’d probably have about £18-23 by now).

I decided the time was right to go back to using a plain old RSS feed. To those who don’t know, it’s an aggregator. You enter some websites you want to be kept up to date with and each time there’s a new article, it automatically finds its way onto your feed.

I’m using Feedly at the moment. It’s pretty good, but it requires a log-in using another service. I’m using my Google+ log-in (the first time I’ve really found a use for that service!) because when I first downloaded Feedly it only worked with Google (if my mind serves me correctly), although I notice now that you can use Twitter, Facebook and others.

Anyway, just thought I’d let you know, in case you’re in a similar predicament.

As you were.