Ever since Google killed existing features in Google Reader and began catering it to their new (mediocre) Google+ Social Media Extravaganza experience, I’ve been on the hunt for ONE quick and easy way by which to deliver media from around the web to a single archival list which I can then share here and elsewhere. The pattern that emerges from my investigation is one of inconsistency between platforms sprayed with a philosophy of We’re A Startup Waiting To Be Bought as opposed to Let’s Help You Share Information. Some of the avenues I tested and results in a convenient spreadsheet format:
The bottom line is that old Google Reader would update items in your carefully-compiled list of feeds, allow you to share your picks to Google Shared Items whether on a desktop, iPhone or iPad all through the same Google account and then give you the ability to publish that list to a page or the sidebar of your blog. SIGH. After this bit of research, the interim workaround I propose is to share these items in delicious and, if you use WordPress like me, can activate a seriously ugly delicious widget via a plugin called WP Delicious Sidebar, which then displays your items of choice in the sidebar. Doing this also serves to archive your links (with tags, if you so desire) in one place.
As I mention in the spreadsheet, Zite has potential but it is available only for iPad and doesn’t show every single item in a feed. As I mentioned to Patrix (who helpfully suggested that I sign up for HiveMined), I don’t want guesses at what I might want to read. I want to see every single item in every single feed to which I signed up, and the suggestions are lagniappe!
If you have any bright ideas or know of apps I’ve overlooked here, please let me know in the comments. Just remember that solutions have to work on desktop, iPhone and iPad and should not require having to turn around three times, pat your tummy and rub your head for five minutes, sing a song and tapdance before getting a piece of information from my screen to yours.
