Help me read the crème de la crème of the internet!

February 25, 2018 2:52 PM

But be able to stop when I've reached the ends of the interesting.

I am type A enough that I could spend all day on longform.org because I could just keep reading. I used to manage this with getting the aggregate emails sent to instapaper, but now it seems to just send the links so if I'm somewhere without a connection then I'm stuck with headlines and nothing to read.

There was a brief moment when Brijit (which aggregated longform pieces with synopses for quick perusal) appeared to be the answer to the eternal how-do-I-find-quality-pieces-to-read conundrum. I received The Skimm for a while, but eventually got turned off by the flippancy and pink-ified nature of it. I love the Quartz daily email now, and get a kick out of most of the Atlas Obscura daily emails. So is there a service which aggregates longform pieces in a similar manner? Is Flipboard the answer I'm looking for I just need to set it up right?

Ultimately I want something which has a limited and curated list of reads which then deletes or archives the ones I'm done with or not interested in. Descriptions of how you handle this problem or suggestions for me would be very appreciated!

posted by eglenner to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

"limited and curated list of reads which then deletes or archives the ones I'm done with"

Isn't this an RSS reader?
posted by kevinbelt at 3:35 PM on February 25, 2018 [2 favorites]

I suspect we may not have the same interests or needs, but FWIW, I use Flipboard for discovery, and for stories I don't have time to finish (or want to keep) I use Pocket Premium (i.e., I "Share" the article over there). Flipboard doesn't usually (varies) show me the same story again, and if I click the check mark in Pocket it goes to the Archive. I can also tag and/or star stories. Pocket also has the "Recommended" list for discovery. Finally, as an experiment I just turned on my phone's Airplane mode and I seem to be able to read articles I previously sent to Pocket.
posted by forthright at 3:49 PM on February 25, 2018

I basically manage this with metafilter. Once or twice a day I click over to the blue, skim down the list of new posts, and open everything I'm interested in in tabs. I then minimise that browser window and open a new window for doing actual work, email, etc. During the day when I want to read something, I open the other browser window, read a tab, and then close the tab when I'm done.

I use Chrome sync to sync to my mobile phone, too, so I can always read on that if I'm on the go.
posted by lollusc at 4:02 AM on February 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

I use Pocket for this. When I get those Quartz emails, anything I find interesting that I can't read right away gets saved to Pocket. I can then read Pocket on planes at the doctor's office or wherever. I don't get stuck reading junk because *I* curate my reading list, not some algorithm. When you're done with a story you can either delete it or archive it. I do periodicaly have to declare Pocket bankruptcy though.
posted by Brittanie at 5:40 PM on February 26, 2018