Kat with a K: Google Reader

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July 15, 2008

Google Reader

Today on the Internets

I've finally gone ahead and made the big switch from Bloglines to Google Reader as my RSS reader of choice. So far, I'm seeing a few definite advantages that Google has: It doesn't stop aggregating after 200 unread posts in a given feed, which was my main problem with Bloglines. And it lets you mark posts as read manually, rather than marking all posts from a given feed as read when you open the feed. So there's no more having to decide whether you have time to read all 175 things Andrew Sullivan has posted in the last day - you can read a few posts from anyone, and then move on to someone else, and the rest are still there nicely marked as unread when you go back. I realize that these things might not bother the less obsessive and methodical among you, but believe me, not being able to easily keep track of what I've read and not read DRIVES ME CRAZY.

I'm finding the interface to be a little clunkier than that of Bloglines, but I hope I'll get used to it soon. And the above good qualities more than make up for a clumsy interface, I think. So. Any of you use Google Reader? Have any good tips or tricks to share?

Posted by Kat at July 15, 2008 08:01 PM

Comments

Learn the keyboard shortcuts (j k etc) and i love starring things i've read but might want to go through more later. keep it on "confirm mark as read" because i once wasn't paying attention and marked all of my knitting blogs as read (they weren't) it wasn't too difficult to go back, but it annoyed me. i dunno.. hope that helps.

Posted by: penny at July 15, 2008 08:16 PM

I love being able to star things and save them for later -- helps with book recommendations and recipes.

Posted by: sprite at July 15, 2008 09:04 PM

Oh, and a warning: I believe posts expire after 30 days. I'm not positive of how long it is, but they do definitely start to disappear after a while.

Posted by: sprite at July 15, 2008 09:09 PM

I use THREE readers--Google, Newsgator, and Bloglines. Although, honestly, I haven't opened my Bloglines account in days....

Posted by: --Deb at July 15, 2008 09:17 PM

I love google reader. I tried out bloglines but i hated the fact that it was a. slow and b. would bring up posts i had read a few days before.

I use newsgator to track work stories but other than that, i'm not a huge fan. I think google reader is a much simpler interface.

Posted by: heidi at July 16, 2008 09:23 AM

I moved over recently too. It takes a bit of getting used to but I quite like it now.

Posted by: mrspao at July 17, 2008 03:53 PM