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Google Reader
By matt | July 23, 2008
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
I read 200 blogs each day.
Well, technically I read more than that. And, realistically, only a few of them write something every day. I suppose it would be more accurate, therefore, to say I “monitor” 200 blogs a day.
RSS and Site Feeds
A few years ago, this would have been impossible. Keeping track of 200 websites, or even 20 websites, would be nearly impossible. Visiting each site through your web browser would mean clicking on the bookmark, looking to see if you had already read what is on the front page, etc.
RSS readers allow you to manage any number “feeds” from websites you enjoy…provided they offer an RSS feed. There’s one offered for my website. If you are new here, there is a little box that appears that invites you to subscribe. There’s also a link to the left, which looks like this:
Subscribe in a reader!Google Reader
You obviously can’t use an RSS feed by itself, as you probably figured out if you clicked on that link at the end of the last section. If you did, you saw at the top of the page that opened an invitation to “Subscribe now! …with web-based readers.” These “readers” allow you to collect many RSS feeds from your favorite websites into a single page.
In other words, when a site updates, the site sends a copy of the new content to the web-based service. That service then gives you a list of all updates that you care about seeing. No more clicking on dozens of bookmarks. Just one site with the updates…
Google Reader is my favorite of the web-based readers. (You can get readers that run on your local system or integrate with your email client, too.) If you have a gmail account, you can log into the service using the same credentials. The interface is easy to manage, you can easily see if a favorite website has updated, you can read all updates in multiple formats…and as this is a Google service, you can also see recommendations for new sites/feeds/sources based upon your current subscriptions and what other “people like you” read.
Why?
I’m writing this for two reasons.
First, I think the Google Reader is a pretty cool product, made better by the fact that it is free.
Second, as a person who runs a website, the more people who read what I write using something like Google Reader, the less load there is on my server. While I’m far from having server-breaking traffic, this applies to other websites, too. So as a reader, you get the latest content from the sites you like while reducing the load you put on those websites.
A few images…
I’m experimenting with a new “image gallery” here. These are some screenshots of the Google Reader.
Take a look at the screenshots and then check out the website…I think it’s worth it.
…and don’t forget to subscribe to my feed, when you do.
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- List of Favorites
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- Headline-style List
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- Detailed Reading
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- More Recommendations
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- Recommended Reads
Topics: technology |
July 23rd, 2008 at 12:10 pm
I’ve been a huge fan of Google Reader since its debut. I particularly like the fact that I can access it from multiple machines and my phone, and don’t have to worry about feeds getting out of sync across all those devices.
RSS in general, though, remains a particularly challenging concept to explain to non-initiates. Even if they get the concept, I think the practical benefits elude most people who haven’t used an RSS reader.
I suspect that has to do largely with the fact that those of us who read enough sites regularly to make an RSS reader useful are still a pretty small minority.