Lilia Efimova writes:
I have three main goals when reading other weblogs: staying updated, following a conversation and problem-solving. I will try to explain what I do in each case.
1. My main way to stay updated is my news aggregator.
2. Following a conversation is different. In this case I’m interested to see how idea from one weblog (my own or one I read) develops across weblogs. In this case I use mainly tracking tools: comments, trackbacks, Technorati, referrals.
3. Problem-solving. If I have a specific question/problem in mind I use search. Could be anything between searching my weblog/ weblogs I read/ all weblogs/ all internet.
I too read blogs in my Info Aggregator (mail client), with subscriptions to about 120 feeds. Every so often, I will come across a new blog, following on a link from one of the existing blogs. Then, I will scan some of the posts by the blogger, and if I like what I see, then I will add the RSS feed into the aggregator.
I find bloggers stimulate my thinking – providing different insights on topics I want to track. They are the best thing to have happened to the Internet in the past few years! It is the way we should have been in 1995.