Save the Media

When I started blogging two years ago, I had this very low-tech, inefficient and almost useless way of keeping track of the blogs and news stories I want to read regularly and the posts or stories I wanted to blog about.

I’d “favorite place” all the blogs  or news Web sites I was interested in. This started out OK, but then the list grew into hundreds, and it ceased to be favorites. It turned into “every blog I might like to read someday.” I was overwhelmed and found myself forgetting to check the blogs I really wanted to read.

Then if I came along a post or news story I wanted to blog about, I’d copy the URL from my browser, pop it into an e-mail to myself and type “blog this” in the subject line. Then I’d e-mail myself, and these e-mails for the most part would be come the worst kind of spam. I was spamming myself and pretty much never looking at these items. I’d stick them in a “blog this” folder in my work e-mail program, which has an auto-purge. Often, they’d be purged before I’d ever do anything with the items.

Don’t do this. I repeat. Don’t do this.

Then I found a better way that I wanted to share because I think it can help  journalist bloggers or any bloggers  for that matter.

I use two simple-to-use, free tools: Google Reader and Delicious.

Here’s the scenario I’m trying to address. If you’re a smart beatblogger, you’ll be reading a dozen or so blogs weekly in your niche. And, of course, because you’re a smart journalist, you’re also reading sites such as The New York Times, Huffington Post, the Drudge Report.

This is an RSS feed icon; click on it on a blog to subscribe to the RSS feed of that blog. One you click, you'll get directions on what to do.

Google Reader

But how do you remember to read these sites or where to reach them? You subscribe to their RSS feeds through Google Reader. (Don’t know what an RSS feed is, read this.) Google Reader isn’t the only way to read your RSS feeds, but it’s how I do it, so it’s the only way I can recommend.

You sign up for a free Google account, and then you subscribe to the blogs you want to read by clicking on the little icon that says RSS feed on those blogs. You end up with essentially a headline of all the blog posts from the blogs you want to read. (You can add to or trim this list at will.)

You also can sort your blogs by topic (I have techie blogs, journo blogs, friends’ blogs and mommy blogs as my categories, but you can make up ones that suit your beat and your life.) I check mine pretty much every day, but if I miss a day — it’s waiting for me. You can even set it up, so that it will only show headlines of posts you have not read yet, which I find useful.

(Want to use Google Reader like a rock star, read this tips from Mashable.)

Google Reader enables you to quickly scan the blogs you like, see if there’s anything you want to comment on, blog about, tweet, or save as a Delicious bookmark. (Again, Delicious isn’t the only way to do this, but it’s the route I use, so I recommend it.)

Delicious

I find Delicious useful because I often come across a story or blog post at a time when I can’t blog about it. In a perfect world, I’d blog everything immediately, but as I often say, “This world is hardly perfect. ” Sometimes, we’re on deadline or need to rush out to cover a story or have to head into a staff meeting.

That’s where Delicious comes in. You sign up for a free account, and then when you want to remember a post for later, you “bookmark” it by sticking the URL of the blog post or news story as a bookmark on your Delicious page. It essentially works just like the low-tech bookmark, sticking a piece of paper in an actual book, but it’s virtual.

You have the option of writing a bit about the site or blog post your just bookmarked and tagging it with keywords. This is a good idea because it will help jog your memory when you go to write about it, and it will help other people who come across your bookmarks know why the post or story you marked is worth reading. (You can read my bookmarks here to get a sense of what I’m talking about.)

Delicious also offers some more cool features:

• You can see how many other people have bookmarked the sites/blog posts you have and find out who they are, or at least what their Delicious name is and find their profile.
• You can search by keyword for bookmarks that might interest you.
• You can also remind yourself of what you wanted to do with the bookmark. (I type USED if I’ve already blogged about the item, for example.)
• You can delete bookmarks when you’re done with them or save them. I save things like directions on how to set up an e-mail subscription on my blog. I might need it again, or a friend might.

If you want to try Delicious, here’s a step-by-step guide to begin.

All this organization helps you as a blogger because you can save time and focus. And that helps you spend your time on your real goal:  writing good content.

I’d love to hear what tools and bookmarking sites you find useful.