If you're anywhere near as bombarded with information, tasks, projects and interactions as I am then you know how difficult it can be to carve out any amount of time each day to stay informed on the latest news and trends. Today, I have the answer for you! A terrific Firefox plugin called Feedly that will change everything about how you read RSS feeds and share with your social network.

No matter what business you're in, you know how critical it is to keep informed on trends in your industry (and the people who most often report them). RSS feeds are a great way to do this, but in the past you were usually stuck with widgets or RSS readers that were clumsy and ugly. I love Google Reader for it's bells and whistles, but even it needed a serious makeover for readability. I found myself ditching my RSS reading in favor of Twitter and FriendFeed. That now is no longer necessary due to the amazing Firefox plugin I've discovered!

Enter Feedly! Feedly is a plugin for Firefox (you're not using Firefox? Are you crazy?) that pulls your RSS feeds from Google Reader into a magazine style format that is simply beautiful. You get a digest view that sorts your feeds and makes them quite easy and fun to consume. Feedly synchronizes with your Google Reader, so whatever you do in Google Reader will pass through to Feedly and vice versa. You never have to leave Feedly to read posts, view comments (both from the blog and from FriendFeed), discover new content from other Google Reader users and much more! Some of the terrific features of Feedly:

Managing and adding subscriptions is easier through Feedly than through Google Reader itself - just click an RSS link and Feedly grabs it and adds it, you can select a category - Presto! Your Google Reader folders get their own digest view as well. There is easy navigation that allows you to manage your subscriptions, perform 'Spring Cleaning,' share your favorite posts and more.

The navigation is stunning, with navigation up top and along the right-hand side of the page. As you read certain posts, they're marked as read or you can click to mark them read by the blog title or along the right navigation. You can click blogs listed on the right column to bring up just those posts in digest view. If you click the 'mark as read' button, Feedly clears out that blog until new posts appear. Numbers appear next to each blog to show how many unread posts there are.

The preferences allow for a great deal of customization. Each feed has buttons that show how many unread posts there are, buttons to mark as read, edit the subscription, bookmark, save for later, open in a browser - truly handy!

The 'Latest' tab at the top shows all your Feeds based on when they were posted like a running report on recent news. This is great for those who just can't get enough and want to be the very first to catch the hottest new stuff.

Feedly serves up terrific widgets or modules to make your reading even better - along the right column you'll also get 'Top Recommenders,' 'Explore New Sources,' 'YouTube Videos,' and 'Flickr photos.' This is where Feedly truly shines as you can quickly find new feeds and articles that interest you and learn who the 'movers and shakers' are for various industry topics.

Another terrific feature I stumbled upon (or delicious feature, I should say) is the 'Most Delicious Sources' tab - click this and you'll see listings of blogs for various industries who are the most bookmarked in Delicious. This is somewhat similar to Alltop and a really interesting way to find new sites to subscribe to.

Last but not least - the final reason you absolutely have to use Feedly - is the launch of their newest feature Feedly Mini. Feedly Mini takes things to an entirely new level by giving you a floating toolbar in Firefox that goes with you on the web when you're not browsing your feeds. The Mini toolbar allows you to share and engage with folks on Twitter and FriendFeed from any website page. It's simply amazing! Just click on the graphic at left to view a larger version that shows the toolbar in action.

Here are two other terrific blog posts touting the fabulousness of Feedly. Go install Feedly and visit these blogs to join in on the conversation. Oh, and don't forget to come back here and let me know what you think of Feedly in the comments... or on Twitter... or FriendFeed! <grin>

Take Twitter and FriendFeed to Go with Feedly Mini - AnshuBlog

Feedly - RSS with Style - introspectiveH