If you’re finding yourself spending a lot of time going to several blog sites to read articles, there’s an easier way to stay up on your blogs. You can use a blog reader. There are several readers out there; select the one you like best and subscribe to your blogs using that reader. Here’s what you do…
1. Select the blog reader you want and set up an account. The standard ones are Bloglines, Google Reader, Netvibes, and Pageflakes. I personally use Bloglines. I really like the ability to organize my blogs into categories/folders, like “Faves”, “Video”, “Thesis”; and then sort the categories in whatever personal order I want; Within those folders, I can further sort the blogs by ones I most don’t want to miss. I’ve used Google Reader, and it does that as well. I also have a bookmark to the Bloglines site so I can immediately go to it.
2. Go to the blog you wish to subscribe to. Somewhere on the page, usually near the top, will be an RSS icon, typically orange with white “waves” on it. When you click on it, it will pop up with a list of readers for you to choose.
3. Select the one you want. There are also usually settings options. Set it how you like.
Another advantage of a blog reader is that every time the author publishes a new post, it is automatically sent out their RSS feed directly to your reader. No more wasting time constantly checking blogs to see if there’s a new post. And you won’t accidentally miss one.
So tell me, what is your favorite blog and why?
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I feel honored to see my blog on that list! Woo-hoo!
I used to use Bloglines, but switched to Google reader. Bloglines was missing some feeds and not working well. I think it was at a time when a lot of people were learning about it and signing up. It had some growing pains.
I agree that a RSS reader eases my life!
Thanks, Jendi. I used to use Google Reader about a year ago, but switched to Bloglines. I can’t remember why, now.
But so far, it does what I need. Wish there was a way to track the ones I’ve read better. If I don’t get to them for a while, it will put “(14)” in bold. But if I don’t have time to read all 14 at one time, but can read 6, it doesn’t change that number (don’t know how it would know how many I read), but they could put a “start here” checkbox or something!