The Read It Later blog analyses online reading patterns, specifically the times during the day when readers bookmark content for reading later, and the times at which they eventually get to the items on their reading list. Nothing startling in the results, except that it’s inter­esting to see how the patterns of reading on the iPhone and iPad (Read It Later is an iOS app, and it’s from this app that the data has been collected) resemble what I imagine are typical patterns for reading the newspaper: over breakfast, during the commute, on the couch after dinner.

I don’t use Read It Later, but I do use Instapaper, and I have a subscription in Google Reader for unread Instapaper items. I ‘star’ these unread Instapaper items in Google Reader during the day, assem­bling a kind of person­alised newspaper for the moments later in the day when I’ll have a chance to read them. In a way, I’m the editor of my own newspaper, and the bloggers I follow and the people I interact with on Twitter are my reporters.

Every now and then I plan to shout “Great Caesar’s ghost!” at you all, just like a real newspaper editor.