Get Organized: Streamline Your News Feeds

The way we get our news has drastically changed in the last few years. These days, a few quick clicks is all it takes to create a tailor-made list of headlines on the topics you're most interested in following. If you really want to keep up with major news about technology or political uprisings in Venezuela, for example, you can create a custom news page for just the subject in question, with breaking updates from only the sources you trust most—or from any online publication. You decide.

That doesn't mean you should turn a blind eye to the rest of the news. But it does allow you to segregate the reading of news outside your core focus to times when you can browse and read at your leisure. For example, you might want to only see breaking news about technology during work hours, and save longer political op-eds to read later in the evenings.

If you find it more important to follow certain types of news closely—whether it's for your job, family life, or personal interests–you'll need to craft a news feed. Here are some tools that do just that.

1. RSS Feed Readers
In my estimation, RSS feed readers are the best way to get updates about specific kinds of news. They aren't the only option, but they are convenient, quick, and highly customizable.

RSS feed readers are online services, often with both a Web account and app, that let you subscribe to specific URLs, getting notified whenever they update. I've listed a few of the best below, but first let me explain what they do. You create an account and add feeds you want to follow to the account. Any time you log in, you'll see a dashboard with a list of stories from the feeds to which you've subscribed. Many of them look similar to an email inbox, except the headline is the subject line. When you click to open them, you get the full story, or the first paragraph and a link to the full article page.

Most media outlets have RSS feeds for all their major sections. For example, The New York Times has separate RSS feeds for U.S. politics, general science, environmental science, technology, its Frugal Traveler section, and many more.

If you need to follow news throughout the day, just leave your RSS feed reader account open on one tab of your computer screen, and check it periodically the way you would email. (If you need a true "alert" system for certain kinds of news, I recommend a different tool; see Mention and Google Alerts below.)

Here are a few RSS feed reader services I've tested and liked.

Digg Reader is pretty good, but it requires signing in with Google, Twitter, or Facebook. There's no email signup. Digg Reader integrates with Pocket, Instapaper, and Readability, so you can scan headlines and save articles to read later when the time suits you.

Feedly, like Digg, requires an authentication with another service rather than allowing email-based sign-ups. One helpful feature: Feedly can suggest RSS feeds similar to ones you've already added, helping you expand your list of sources.

G2 Reader is simple, but might look cluttered when compared with the minimalist design of Feedly and Digg. G2Reader has a great feature that lets you enter keywords in the settings so that they are highlighted any time they show up in your feed content. It's free, and available in multiple languages.

Many other RSS feed-reading services exist. Some are very simple to use, while others are a little trickier but give you total control. See our list of 10 great Google Reader replacements for more recommendations.

2. Twitter and Twitter Lists
I love Twitter (you can follow me @jilleduffy), but the list of people I follow has nothing to do with news. You certainly could use Twitter to follow only news outlets, journalists, and experts in the fields you want to follow, or you could get the same results using a Twitter List and leave your group of followers as-is.

A Twitter List is a set of Twitter accounts that you or another user cultivates and saves—but you don't have to follow anyone on the list to see the list or updates from it. I made this list of official PCMag Twitter accounts, for example, which you can view any time or add to your own Twitter Lists. Again, you don't have to follow any of the individual accounts on the list to see the updates.

Lists can also be private, so if you don't want anyone to know that you avidly check for updates from the top Twitter accounts tweeting news about the FIFA World Cup, keep it locked. Also note that when you add a new account to a list, that person may get a notification of the activity, unless the List is private.

To create a new Twitter List, click the gear icon and select Lists. To add an account to a List, click the gear icon anywhere it shows up on that user's tweets or page, and select "add or remove from lists."

3. Flipboard
Flipboard is a mobile app that lets you curate news and other reading content, but it displays it more like a magazine than the inbox-appearance you get with many RSS feed readers. It started as Flipboard for iPad only, but it made a huge splash because it was so touch-friendly. There are now versions of Flipboard for Android and Flipboard for iPhone.

In my opinion, Flipboard is good for the kind of news you want to read when you have time to fully get into the topic, in part because it's designed like a magazine. You won't get a compact and fast-updating list of headlines with Flipboard, but you will get a wonderful experience for reading only articles on topics of interest to you or from the sources you appreciate the most. Just make sure to use Flipboard for news you don't need quickly and immediately.

4. Google Alerts
Google Alerts isn't exactly meant to be used to follow news (it's really meant for keeping track of when certain terms are used online), but you can absolutely use it to follow very specific news with clear key words. If your terms are too general, you'll get thousands of alerts, rendering the whole thing useless.

With Google Alerts, which requires a Google account, you type in a list of words, set a few other parameters, and then let Google alert you via email or feed when those terms appear online. The email notification is straightforward. The feed option creates an RSS feed URL with updates on mentions of your term, which you can then check periodically or add to the RSS feed reader of your choice.

Some of the parameters in Google Alerts include the ability to get only the "best results" (there's no clear definition of what that means) or "all results" from across the Web.

You can also choose to get updates send to your email as they happen, in true "alert" fashion, or in summary daily or weekly.

5. Mention
Mention is the most direct competitor to Google Alerts that I've used. It's a desktop application (there are mobile apps, too) that lets you set up alerts, similar to Google Alerts, to monitor in real time when your keywords are used online.

Mention is really meant for marketing and advertising teams, or small businesses, that want to know when their products, services, companies, and executives are being discussed somewhere on the Web. If, however, your job requires you to vigilantly monitor news about particular people, products, places, or topics, Mention may be one of the best tools you can use.

A free Mention account only gets you one saved keyword search and 100 notifications per month, but the paid Mention accounts (starting at $9.99 per month) give you a lot more.

Your Personal Newsreel
Here's a little summary of what I think works best for different kinds of news tracking.

• If you want to keep an eye on headlines throughout the day, set up an RSS feed reader and leave it open in a tab on your screen. Check it periodically the way you would email.
• If you're a social media fan and want to keep an eye on news from certain accounts on Twitter, use Lists to organize the sources or topics you follow.
• Deep readers who want to catch up on more in-depth news at their leisure on a tablet or smartphone should download the free Flipboard app. Another solution to this same end is to use Digg Reader and save longer articles to Pocket, Instapaper, and Readability.
• Finally, Google Alerts and Mention are best for people who need to monitor the Web for news of very specific key terms. Google Alerts is free, and while Mention has a free version, it's fairly limited. If you need this tool, you'll want a paid account.