How I find stuff I like
The three main methods I use to find content I'll be interested in are:
1. My RSS reader - I use FeedDemon and have done for years. I can't get through each feed every day (not even close), but I do go through them systematically. My feeds are ordered alphabetically in folders, so if I finish one day on the "G-L" folder, I'll begin at the "M-S" the next day. I've tried ordering by topics etc, but the system broke down. I "prune" feeds as I go and aim not to increase the number of feeds. If a new feed comes in, one must go that session. My main criteria for deciding which feed will go is the last updated date - if the feed hasn't been updated for weeks, it's a gonner. There's enough natural attrition using this criteria to let 1 or 2 new feeds every couple of weeks.
2. Techmeme - two or three times daily. Tells me what's hot and what's not.
3. My del.icio.us network - once daily. I use this page to find out which links "my network" of human bookmarkers (my del.icio.us people) have bookmarked that use use links as recommended reading. Some of these will point to stuff I've already read in my RSS reader (or is waiting to be read), but it works for me as a quick hit for good reading recommendations.
I have 20 del.icio.us people who make recommendations to me this way:
andyed
annez
awsbuzz
bobreb
bokardo
chadd
cshirky
dhinchcliffe
JamesGovernor
judell
Korbyp
ksharkey
leonardr
mattmcalister
ricmac
ryansking
sogrady
TimBray
twwilliams
vanderwal
These 20 del.icio.us people aren't making these recommendations available to me exclusively - anyone with (or without) a del.icio.us account can subscribe to the del.icio.us bookmarks of anyone else (where those bookmarks have been made "public" by the bookmarker). I didn't ask for their permission to add them to my network, but I'd say almost all of them are aware that their bookmarks are being used as a form of reading recommendations. Some explicilty use it for this purpose to republish in their RSS feeds (and / or blogs and add comments to those bookmarks (I do).
Another interesting aspect to the del.icio.us network feature is that I can see who is "subscribed" to my del.icio.us bookmarks - who's network that I'm in. These people (some 70+ today) are using me as part of their recommendation engine.
When I visit my del.icio.us network page, the "click through rate" on network-recommended content is very high. The ability for a bookmarker attach a comment to the bookmark adds another dimension too (agree / disagree, a quote or a quip).