A couple of weeks ago I was included in the Kjell Kallman Daily and thought the idea behind it was fantastic. Here was a way for me to put together a daily on-line newspaper that I could somewhat control the content, but didn't have to spend hours on as well. Since then, I set up the "Communication Daily."
Paper.li is fairly new and more people are starting to use it, but I find it very useful for a few reasons. First, it allows me to find articles that people have posted throughout the day that I might have missed. I am not in front of my computer that much anymore and when I am, I have work to do. This means that I will usually miss some great posts by people during the day unless I'm lucky enough to catch it for the 5 or 10 minutes that I'm on. So on a personal/selfish level its nice because I can follow people on twitter and check out their posts without having to be tied to my computer all day.
Secondly I love the layout. It looks more professional than a lot of on-line newspapers (at least the small-town ones that I've been used to). It automatically separates the paper into different sections based on the content, while keeping an essential core the same (media, pictures, etc.). In this sense, it is easy to follow and catch up on everything.
Third, it allows me to recognize a few people each day on twitter that deserve it! There is so much good stuff out there that people should check out, its nice to recognize them from time to time and hopefully spread what they have been writing about to others.
Overall I'm glad I started using Paper.li and will continue to use it. They are working on adding more control features for users, which they needed to, and I'm excited to see what changes will come in the future.
Note: The list on twitter I use is the list of those I follow and have listed under the tag Communication. If you are involved in communication in some aspect and I don't follow you yet on twitter or don't have you in that list, drop me a line and I'd be happy to get you added so you can be a part of it.
- Travis