If you prefer your feed reading simple and distraction-free, Skimr is a new webapp that organises all of your feeds into a single column, with or without images. All of your stories are arranged chronologically, with a short snippet before each, so you can quickly skim the headlines.
If you visit Skimr now, you’ll see a number of popular blogs you can try the service out with immediately. Click any one of them to see their headlines and a snippet of their articles arranged in Skimr’s easy-to-scroll-through view. You can toggle header images by clicking the image icon at the top of the page (and get a view similar to the one shown here).
Viewing single feeds with Skimr is useful, but it shows its real potential when you sign up for an account. You can build your own Skimr feed using the URLs of your favourite blogs and web sites, or you can browse Skimr’s directory and pick from there. Alternatively, if you’re coming over from a service like Google Reader, you can import your OPML list of feeds and Skimr will automatically add your subscriptions to your account. From there, you can click “All Skims” to see all of the stories from your subscribed blogs, or organise them into folders for easy reading.
Skimr isn’t perfect: You only have a top-to-bottom chronological view, no sidebars or quick way to switch folders. This means it’s fine for a handful of subscriptions, but if you start adding dozens of sites, you’ll wind up scrolling forever just to keep up on new posts. Still, the layout makes it easy to quickly skim headlines, and clicking any story takes you directly to the article so you can read more. The service is clean, fast and completely free.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.