My newsletter set-up

I love a great newsletter. By curating the right sources, newsletters allow me to cut through the noise, and stay informed on what is happening in tech.

Unfortunately, they are also a source of distraction for me. Because I also love having zero unread emails. Meaning I would have this urge to read through my zines before starting my work.

Luckily, the new set-up I have been using for the past weeks works like a charm.

The set-up

Frontstage, I use an app called ReadKit. It's available on both Mac and iOS. Which is a must-have, as I read newsletters both on my computer, and on-the-go. It's a no-frills, really well-designed app.

Initially, I was looking at the new Reeder, by Silvio Rizzi. Reeder was one of my favorite OG iPhone-apps, with a lot of delightful UI. It has since evolved from a RSS-reader into a cross-medial 'timeline app'. (The Verge has a good article on this new breed of apps.)

But I was only looking for a focused newsletter apps. Plus, I also needed Feedbin-support. (Granted, the Reeder Classic still has this, but by the time I figured that out, I was happy with ReadKit.)

Because behind the curtains, here's how newsletters end up in ReadKit, with their read states synced across devices:

1. On iCloud, newsletters are forwarded to a personal Feedbin email address.
2. Feedbin stitches that into a feed.

There were alternatives which I looked at, especially given Feedbin is a yearly subscription (which I will be under-utilising):

• Kill The Newsletter is a free alternative to Feedbin, but it doesn't have read state syncing.
• Using a dedicated mail/newsletter client with a dedicated email address. This wasn't an option, as some of my newsletters are linked to a (paying) account, which doesn't allow me to subscribe using a different email address.

Maybe in the future, I will add other sources to ReadKit, like Pocket or RSS (feels so good to write). But for now, I just love this single-use set-up.

Encore: my newsletter diet

As someone following the tech industry both professionally and as a podcast host (and newsletter author), here's the run-down of the newsletters I read:

• Weekly: Benedict Evans (great, opinionated takes, albeit a bit grumpy), Tech.eu (great for following the EU ecosystem), Rest of World (broadening my horizon), The Linkfest (really weird, but fascinating finds by Wired-contributor Clive Thompson), Game On (by Bloomberg's gaming industry veteran reporter, Jason Schreier).
• Daily: The Briefing and The Information AM (both by The Information, which does excellent tech coverage), Bloomberg Tech In Depth. I still miss TechFT dearly.