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January 18, 2007
Google Reader
If you have friends with blogs, then this post is for you. I use what's called a feed aggregator to collect all of the blogs that I read into a single website for easy consumption. This tool will tell me when a friend or industry maven has posted new content to their blog. I don't have to remember to visit the site. In the past I've happily used Bloglines for feed consumption, and it's still one of the best tools out there.
Based on a recent post from Jeffery Veen about viewing blog reading trends in Google Reader, I decided to check it out. Within one minute, I had imported all of my Blogline's feeds into Google Reader using the handy OPML export.
The verdict is still out on the reading trend feature that Veen mentioned, but I'm already hooked on the feed aggregation. One of the best features is that it works like email. The unread items are bold, and after I've read a blog post, it stays in the folder in an un-bolded "read" state. In Bloglines, after you've read a blog post it disappears, the only way to re-read it is to visit the website where it came from. I can't tell you how many times I've had to do that. With Google Reader, the previously read post is still there. In fact, I don't see a search feature yet, but I would bet that searching within your feeds is coming soon; it is Google we're talking about.
Anyway, if you read blogs and don't use a feed aggregator, you should. If you use something else, I think you should try Google Reader. The only Bloglines feature that's not present in it's current incarnation is the ability to display your public feeds in a javascript injected blogroll. I currently display a list of my public feeds in the sidebar of my blog. I can't replicate that feature in Google Reader, yet. They do allow for syndication of a public folder, but they syndicate the content of the blogs rather than just a list of blogs. I'm sure this will be available soon.
I feel the same sort of love for Google Mail (aka gmail), so you should use that as well. If I had to pick one feature of gmail to tout, it would be that it groups emails by subject, so an email conversation that's 20 emails deep will appear to be 1 email in your inbox. You have to use it to understand. You might have to be invited to use gmail, so if you're interested, let me know and I'll invite you.
I admit that I sound like a half-crazed, drooling, kool-aid drinking, Google disciple, and for the most part, I am. Google is just good at taking ordinary mundane things we take for granted and re-delivering them with a new spin.
Posted by mark at January 18, 2007 8:46 AM Subscribe (FeedBurner)