You can find a list of different news aggregators to explore at the bottom of this entry, but the majority of this blog post will focus on the news aggregator: Feedly.com as an example, including: How to signup, add content and adjust your preferences.
A Bit on News Aggregators
News aggregator Websites (click here for the wikipedia entry) are essentially an online location, where you can organize, save and share a variety of your favorite news sources in one spot.
For example, if you like CNN, Fox, The Economist and Huffington Post, you can add each of these sources independently to your news aggregator and receive automatic updates about new stories from these sources in real-time as they are posted.
Essentially you would no longer have to search out articles to share from random places online - You could instead go to your Feedly (or any news aggregator you choose) and click through the various updates from your news sources.
A Quick Example from Feedly:
An example screenshot below shows added news sources on the left and the quantity of new updates available (highlighted) on the right.
A Quick Overview on Signing Up
To sign-up for your own Feedly account (click here), you can use your email, or link any of the following accounts you may already have: Google, Facebook, Twitter, Evernote or Microsoft.
Once you are signed up with an account and successfully logged in, you can begin adding content. Feedly is quite user-friendly on its own, but if you have any trouble I put together a few screenshots of how to add news sources below:
Adding Content Sources
Once logged in, locate and click the 'Add Content' button, found near the upper left hand corner of your page.
Step 2
Click into the search box and enter a topic to explore; I used: 'Business' as an example and clicked the first option in the dropdown menu - the 'Business' hashtag
Step 3:
Review your suggested sources, and add the ones you like. You'll find a green plus button to click for adding content to your list of feedly sources.
Step 4:
After clicking the Plus Sign, a sidebar appears to the left, where you name your source, in this case I went with Feedly's auto suggestion of HBR.org and then I housed this source in a Folder (Feedly calls them 'Collections') where I will put all my other 'Business' related sources. Once you're all set, locate and click the 'Add' button at the bottom left hand corner of your page
After clicking the 'Add' button you will see your 1) 'new source' has been added to the 2) 'collection title' you have selected.
In this way you can create a ton of different Collections to house a wide variety of sources, ensuring that you always have something to share at your fingertips.
Mobile Apps
Feedly integrates well with both iOS and Android.
- Try their iOS App here: bit.ly/1vCsqCL
- Try their Android App here: bit.ly/1vCsLWd
Customize Your Feedly Preferences
You can customize your Feedly setting through their 'Preferences' link - just scroll to the bottom left hand column of your profile page, find and click on preferences:
Once you've clicked into your preferences you'll see a variety of options you can use to customize your article viewing experience on Feedly, connect your social media & email accounts, and quite a few other personalization features.
More Info - Further Reading
As you will see in the links below, a variety of news aggregators aside from Feedly are out there, which work great as well, it all depends on your personal preferences. I linked a few additional news aggregators below in addition to a few helpful articles which might assist in exploring this topic a bit further.
http://bit.ly/1Fgt3TN - How to Use Feedly - blog entry via www.LifeandSocial.com
http://bit.ly/1vChsNB - 18 Best News Apps (For iOS, Android & Windows) via DigitalTrends.com
http://bit.ly/1xmsLoa - For a Google Search of News Aggregator Websites for 2014
http://bit.ly/11oYRH8 - For LinkedIn Pulse
http://bit.ly/1y2ehfZ - For Digg Reader
http://bit.ly/1usgFYA - For Netvibes
http://bit.ly/1zeKj7Q - For Google Currents
http://bit.ly/1toZVRI - For Flipboard
*Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with any of the companies or businesses mentioned in this post, which is intended for educational purposes. Thank you :).