Josh Shear

I've been using Bloglines as a feed reader for about five years now, and there are some things I like about it, including the ability to see embedded video within the reader. But as I get more mobile, I find it's not enough.

I've recently launched a new Twitter account at @_ThatJosh (with the underscore; without was already in use). I'm using it as a feed reader rather than a conversationalist, like I do with my main @JoshShear account.

I didn't duplicate the feed list I have in Bloglines. I'm still running image-heavy feeds (like the Dilbert daily comic strip and Josh Spear's trend-spotting blog) through it, but now for the social media, search and entrepreneur feeds I read, I can see what's going on in a list form, with only a headline, a few words and a link.

This is especially helpful when conferences are going on and my feed reader blows up with the live blogging (I still love you, Outspoken and BCI, I'm just making it easier on me).

Here is how I set it up:

1. I created a new GMail account. This gives me the opportunity to use it as a pivot point for anything I decide to do with this particular group of accounts. GMail has a good spam filter, so I don't have to worry about cleaning out the inbox frequently, and Google seems to be OK with me opening as many accounts as I want.

2. I signed up the Twitter account.

3. I went to Twitterfeed and signed in with my Google account (use the "Sign in with Open ID" link). I added the feeds, told Twitterfeed how often to check each, and to post them to my Twitter account.

I use Hootsuite to read Twitter both on my laptop and on my phone (I use the Android application, not the website, on my mobile). I created a tab for _ThatJosh, and put three columns on that tab: mentions (people talking to me), direct messages (private messages to me), and my sent feed, which essentially ends up being the feeds I'm reading.

This is antithetical to how I recommend people to use Twitter, but my goal is not followers: It's a tool for me to make my morning reading routine go smoother. I hope it helps you as well.