Twitter and Google Reader Aren't at War

There have been conversations recently about abandoning RSS readers, and specifically Google Reader in favor of using Twitter as a human filter for information. The idea is that if you follow smart people, they read good material and will pass that along to their network - you.

Part of me says, maybe. Somehow I think that if you come across a really good post filled with juicy information that will make you look good when you implement it, you'll probably keep that more to yourself. Maybe use it to build on when you write on your own blog. How far off am I?

Others, are in favor of continuing to use Google Reader.

To me, it's not a choice between one and the other - it's about integration.

• Twitter is great for discovering what people are talking about.
  
• Google Reader is great for discovering what they think.

The image above illustrates my recent monthly Google Reader activity, which is fairly proportional to the number of new posts in the 193 blogs I syndicate directly, plus many of the blogs my network shares in Google Reader. The counter says it's 3,289 posts. I share a little bit on Google Reader, but it's minimal at this point - 17 for the month.

Instead, I share a lot of good posts and content on Twitter. My HootSuite stats tell me that I shared 123 posts netting a total of 9,505 clicks.

The most popular were content that contained free information and insight, was unexpected, and sounded very useful from the title. We analyzed the type of content that fares well in my Twitter stream before.

While you currently can't make a feed from a Twitter list, Google Reader is actually an excellent companion to Twitter.

Using Google Reader and Twitter together frees you from using Twitter's clunky search tools or having to watch your stream in real time.

You can import the following things into Google Reader:

1. Your Twitter time line (format it, this will be a lot of data)

2. All tweets mentioning you

3. Your favorites (a good way to save data)

4. Other person's favorites (let your friends curate content for you)

5. You can do saved searches

Those are 5 things you can do to make Google Reader and Twitter work together, saving time and creating a data base of all that information at the same time.

Once it's in Google Reader, you're golden.

What are your reading habits? Do you use Twitter as your filter these days? Why/why not?

© 2006-2009 Valeria Maltoni. All rights reserved.

Comments

[Randy]

Valeria,

There is a web service that converts Twitter Lists to RSS feeds. And though you must copy and paste the generated link into Google Reader, it works well.

http://twiterlist2rss.appspot.com/

I think your definition of integration in this context is spot on. The long form of the blog post still provides a valuable format for context, supporting detail and examples. It's hard to achieve those elements in 140 characters.

[Heidi Cool]

I think Twitter and Google Reader play very nicely together. I'm subscribed to many blogs in reader, but I also use it for brand and other monitoring. Thus I'm subscribed to feeds from Google Blog search, various delicious feeds, news search, and Twitter searches. The great thing about Reader is that I can organize my feeds into categories and view them when I have time.

If someone shares a good link on Twitter now, and I don't look at Tweetdeck for 5 hours, then I'll miss that link. But if I'm subscribed to the blog in Reader, it will be ready and waiting whenever I get around to it.

Twitter is a great place to discover new blogs and important stories, but it won't give me everything that reader does. And of course Google Reader is where I find the links that I share on Twitter.

I also use Reader Share to feed my shared items to my personal Facebook page. While I could also run that feed through Twitterfeed, I don't. I think of my Facebook friends and Twitter followers as being different audiences, so I hand pick different links to post on Twitter than the ones I share via Reader.

Reader and Google are both great on their own, but together they're even stronger. I can't imagine giving up one for the other when I get so much more out of using both.

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Randy - thank you for the tip and the link, and for elaborating on the concept further.

@Heidi - the ability to consume the information when you have time/want to is one of the main reasons why I use GReader. I like that you put thought into what you share and where. When you have a strategy for your participation, it's easier to figure out what is appropriate and when.

[Sommer @greenmom @3greenangels]

Great information on using Google Reader and Twitter together and I do this for myself and advise for my clients.

The Statment:

"Google Reader is great for discovering what they think"

It isn't just what they think but also for keeping up to date and current - that is what the Google Reader does for me and clients, quickly.

[Carolyn Ann]

I can't help but think that if we rely on those whom are smart as our filter - we not only abide by one of my favorite maxims, we open ourselves to manipulation. Overt or covert, it doesn't really matter - we abdicate the responsibility for discovering our world to others. Whom might or might not want the job!

(My favorite maxim: The search for self-expression has evolved into a need to have that self-expression unchallenged, which in turn necessitates living among people who think and feel just as you do. --- Sandra Tsing-Loh in "Class Dismissed", March 09 The Atlantic (p86))

I am interested in why you quote those numbers, though, Valeria. If my guess is right, you don't measure the worth of a person by the quantity of their contributions, but by the worth of some of those contributions? So why are metrics necessary? Did I grasp the wrong end of the metaphorical stick? (I suspect I did.)

I have to admit, I was only partially aware of Google Reader; Twitter I barely know. I value my moments reading your blog; I always feel a little smarter when I read your words, Valeria. :-)

Carolyn Ann

[Cindy Stephenson]

I also like the combination of Google Reader and Twitter. I'd add Delicious to that as well. I find it particularly useful to see what other people I feel are influential have saved.

I really like your suggestion of subscribing to tweets mentioning you and subscribing to other people's favorites, but am not sure how I would capture that in the "add a subscription" box.

I would welcome your advice/suggestions.

[Laurens Van den Wijngaert]

Hi Valeria,

Great post!! Indeed, Twitter & Google Reader work perfectly together.

Kind regards,
Laurens (@backbonemedia)

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Sommer - as I'm sure you agree, staying up to date and current depends on the content you syndicate. In some cases, it's mostly on opinion, in others, it's more information, knowledge and news.

@Carolyn Ann - I count on you and many others to challenge my take and am very grateful for it. Although I tend to look at many sides of an issue myself, I'm keenly aware that I am both writer and editor. Good observations on the numbers - they merely depict my sharing and reading habits. I do seem to process a lot of information! While data is interesting, it's what you do with it and how you interpret it that makes it valuable ;)

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Cindy - delicious is good, I agree. I just never developed a strategy for integrating it in my activities, so I use it occasionally. To save a Twitter search go to Google Reader browse for stuff, select the "search" tab and "keyword and searches". Enter your search term and select "twitter search" on the menu provided, then hit + subscription.

@Laurens - thank you for stopping by.

[Christian Russell]

Could not agree more. One certainly does not replace the other. bloggers should be sensitive to the fact that many of their readers are going to depend on twitter for updates, but besides that, there is certainly power in both tools. I cannot personally imagine using Twitter to replace my rss reader.

[Danny Brown]

To be honest, Valeria, I use neither. Okay, that's not strictly true - I'll click through to links from people whose opinion and recommendations I trust, or if there's a tweet with an enticing lead.

Otherwise, it's email subscriptions for me as I like to read as and when I have the time, as opposed to searching through a ton of RSS feeds for possible relevant stuff.

Of course, I'm a Luddite so take everything I say with a pinch of salt ;-)

[Akash Sharma]

Both the tools are useful but the fact that Twitter list RSS can be really cool to use can't be denied as it would have people with the same mindset sharing something of great use for anyone.But for now reader does a good job by collating all the information.

[Ryan Waggoner]

For a reader or consumer, dropping RSS for Twitter might make sense...I wouldn't do it, but some people might. Personal preference, I guess.

But from the standpoint of a producer, focusing on RSS over Twitter is lunacy, unless your audience is extremely tech-savvy. I know it doesn't get much attention, but email is still probably the most valuable channel to develop relationships with your customers / clients / readers.

There's also the issue of owning the connection with your readers, rather than having Twitter own it, but that's a subject for another day.