I love Facebook- it allows me to keep up with old friends, build new friendships, and stay up to date with everyone I love. It’s also the worst content deliverer on the planet. I often miss the great posts from people I care about because Facebook doesn’t put posts sequentially in your feed, or worse, I get bombarded with crappy content. Not cool. 

Fortunately, there’s an amazing alternative: instead of Facebook, use an RSS feeder for content. 

An RSS feeder works the same way great magazines or newspapers work, but with tremendous customization. In most RSS feeder apps, you simply type the name of the blog or website you want to follow, and it brings you every post from that source the instant it’s posted. 

Still not convinced? Here’s 7 great reasons to switch: 

7. No ads, if you want no ads. Most ads are filtered out by RSS readers, and few of the readers themselves add ads to the feed.

6. No way to pay to boost the likelihood that you’ll read it. Unlike Facebook where you can pay to have your content appear more often, RSS readers display everything in order of appearance, and only if you decide you want to read it. 

5. It makes it easy to bookmark and save your favorite articles. Most RSS readers have great bookmarking and content saving options, making it easy to come back to an article you enjoyed.

4. Feeders make it easier to track what you have and haven’t read. In most blog feeders, all the blogs you’ve read will be marked as read, saving you from having to re-read content.

3. Feeds can be grouped by topics. Instead of constantly topic-hopping, you can stay focused on each subject while reading. For instance, I group mine into Business, Environment, Computer, Misc, Music, and Personal categories.

2. It’s super-elegant. Instead of all the sidebar ads popping up while you read, you get just the content of the article. 

1. It’s free. It’s free to subscribe to blogs, and most RSS readers are either free or low cost. My favorite RSS readers are Feedly (free) and FeedReader (also free).