On Subscribing
I’ve had a couple of chats recently about RSS and feed delivery and following Tilly’s recent discussion on the matter, thought it might be a good idea to mention it here. I know that a lot of people with blogs on WordPress/ Blogger tend to follow other blogs on the same platform directly through the dashboard while others do it via email. My preferred version? RSS.
RSS, or Really Simple Syndication is an awesome setup that lets you gather all (yes, even le monde and nyt) your online reading material in one place. It does this via a reader. The reader is usually a window (or a tab) in a web browser where all the blogs, newspapers, magazines, diy sites etc you read are grouped in one place. Like so.
Yep, she’s a cutie. Try not to get distracted.
On the left is a list (it’s a long one) of all the blogs and feeds I’m subscribed to. On the right is a viewing pane where I can read said blogs. The reader I use is Google Reader and it lives in my Google account like so.
Green green green
This means that if you have Gmail or any other Google related account, you automagically have access to Reader. When you want to subscribe to a blog/ feed just click Subscribe and add the blog URL in the box.
And it has continuous scrolling. You’ll never have to click again (I lie).
If you’re not sure what the URL is (you found it while in a compromised state and no longer recollect the fine details) Reader will search for you. Click Add and Reader will ping (check) the blogs you like, a couple of times a day and when a new post appears, you’ll automagically see it in your reading pane. Unread items are marked just like unread emails in an inbox and (and just like unread emails you can ‘mark all as read’, thus increasing your daily efficiency 300%) you can bookmark/ star interesting posts. The best part? An RSS reader forms a permanent archive of all the things you mean to get back to. For instance, that yellow hoodie I read about yonks ago? Right here.
Click the post you were looking for…
Et voila!
Also, you can sort your feeds by magic (the significance of this statement is astronomical, not to mention a totally insane proposition for someone with a colour coded wardrobe) and rename the blogs you subscribe to (only in Reader, not in real life) to better hide your stalking from the intervention team. Reader also recommends new blogs for you to try out based on your current list (although that’s been a bit of a fail thus far, no sweet hits apart from xkcd and smittenkitchen and I was already subscribed to the latter).
The ‘translate’ function (and I use the term loosely) also provides much-needed colour to your day.
Bloglovin’ is similar (in that it’s recommendations are also epic fails) but requires you to register and setup an account and since I already had a Google account I just went with Reader.
So what’re you waiting for?
Update 31st May, 2012- Take it to next level. You know you want to.
I use Google Reader as well. Isn’t it funny how it recommends xkcd to everyone? I love that comic though.
The machine humour in xkcd probably makes sense to its algorithm and it’s like-OMGLULZ read this funny shi*t now! I searched the whole internet and finally I’ve found humour! XD
great minds think alike, i couldn’t live without my google reader!! i LOVE it (except when it tells me i have 1000+ unread items, then i get twitchy.) bloglovin’ has it’s perks (like going directly to the blog to read new entries), but i found out about it after i had 200+ subs in GR. so sorry, BL. lastly, i know you’re out of grad school, but the whatshouldwecallgradschool tumblr is an highly entertaining read!
Hahaha Thanks! I’ve seen some of those around, thank goodness I didn’t go there while I was writing up. XD I just spent a good hour there. I loved First time I used a multichannel pipette and When I aspirate the pellet.
OK so I have to read this tomorrow when I am not drinking wine. I’m sick of email overload …. ta for taking the time to post.
Cheers. It’s not entertaining if you do it while you’re sober..
True – what a choice!!
I’m devoted to Google Reader. I also use the g-whizz app on my phone so I am never far away from a blog post : ) Does that make me a blog reading junkie?
It does get addictive but only in a good way-just like cocaine.
Crikey, I thought my tea addiction was hardcore.
Tea with methadone? Probably a good time to read my About page.
Great post, I learned some things about GR I didn’t know. I love my Google Reader, especially on my itouch on the go. Helpful for killing time. How many feeds ARE you subscribed to? I find I only have time for about 190. Which cracks me up because that’s a lot of reading.
Cool, happy that people are getting some use out of it! I’ve pared my feed-age down to 114 (I’d decided not to go above 100 feeds, every time I do I cull all the dead wood-people that go off topic or just don’t post about stuff that I’m interested in anymore, or don’t post often/ haven’t posted for a while, anything that aggregates *coughdesignspongcough* etc. Due for a bit of a clean up again.. XS
Interesting! I use Bloglovin right now, but it doesn’t work with some blogs for whatever reason (random glitches in the system), so I’ve been looking for a good alternative. And Google reader might just be the thing I was looking for. Thanks for sharing!
Pleasure. I’m happy it seems to be helping. More here.
I’m definitely a Google reader fan here too! Although one hazard of it being so easy to subscribe is that I have to have a clean out every so often to avoid overwhelm and desperately clicking “mark all as read” when a folder gets out of control. I love being able to make folders of my favourites.
Thanks for the post! I’ll have to check out RSS. I don’t have a great system right now- I use e-mail subscription and after a while, my e-mail in-box exploded and I had to drop some random blogs that I subscribed to because it was too overwhelming to go through.
Doitdoit! It streamlines the whole procrastination process to a fine art.
You are a technological genius. I am learning a lot from you although I still have to figure out what disqus is. Do you know I’ve been just typing in names of blogs I read or clicking on the links on my own blog. I’m a dinosaur. This reader thing has been a real time saver – more time to sew!!! Or watch reruns of 30 Rock.
Thanks! I’m so glad people are getting some use out of this- added an update today.
I love Google Reader, but I tend to use Feedly (http://www.feedly.com) as its frontend. It’s great for mobile, but it’s also available as an app for Chrome.
Cool thanks! Good to know of other options just in case Google stops backing this one XD
And more helpful info!
I’ve just come here from your recent captcha post. Have you discovered the wonder of the “Next” button?! It sits in your toolbar and clicking on it takes you to the next unread item in your reader. It means you can see things in their original context (I forget what blogs look like otherwise) and you don’t have to click through to comment ‘cos you’re already there. A thing of beauty.
Ya, I use the keyboard shortcuts J and K respectively. I also use the Super reader add-on to ‘unfurl’ complete posts (that after the jump shit annoys me) including commenting in my reader window. Which is what that link at the end lead to (but apparently Mashable have moved the original page)-so I need to find a static permalink for something similar. Thanks for indirectly drawing my attention to it.
Wah! Have you heard- Google reader is going away. I have been using it since you recommended it. Do you know of any other reader that is similar? I liked how with GR you could skim a huge number of blogs in a few minutes.
Ya, it is hideous but it is what it is. I spent the evening trial-ing alternatives. Will do a roundup post in about a week. Lesson well learned XP