Many of the viewers of this blog are e-mail subscribers but several of you get your daily blog dose via an rss reader. For those of you that use Google Reader you have probably heard by now that as of July 1, Google Reader will be no more. For those of you who do not use an RSS reader, let me introduce you to this great tool for keeping up with your on-line content.
I was a little panicked at first when I first heard the Google news, I can not imagine being able to keep up with the 40+ blogs I subscribe to without an RSS reader. However, the lovely Madison at Espresso and Cream posted yesterday about a new RSS reader she found called Bloglovin’ that seems to be as good as if not better better than Google Reader.
An RSS Reader also known as a Feed Reader is a place that aggregates all your on-line subscriptions into one place to make it easier to view. I would go nuts if I were getting 40+ extra e-mails per day telling me my favorite blogs had published a new post. I already get way too many e-mails and am afraid I would not be able to keep up. (I HATE the thought of missing something!)
With my current Google reader, when I have time to read my subscriptions I just click on an icon I loaded onto my desktop,
then all the blogs I subscribe to are shown and the ones that have new content (items I have not read) are highlighted.
It is so easy then to just click from one to the other and I can usually get through most of my day’s reading in 30-45 minutes.
Bloglovin’, the new RSS reader Madison highlighted yesterday, is VERY easy to set up. Just go to the Bloglovin site, you can do that by clicking HERE. Once there, sign up for an account. Word of warning……unless you want everything you read announced on FACEBOOK then I would suggest you NOT sign up with your facebook login. Instead, select the e-mail signup.
Once you have signed up, you can choose to migrate all your Google reader blogs over to this site or you can do them one at a time. If you do not currently use Google reader, you can start subscribing to blogs like Ruminations and Reckonings just by typing it in to the subscribe box.
There are a few custom settings you can change if you want, like getting no emails or one email a day, etc. The only feature I have not been able to find is an icon for my desktop but I am still looking for that. They also have an App for the iPhone that looks promising.
The good news is if I decide I do not want to use this reader I can easily convert to something else. The hubby sent me an article this week listing a few other alternatives for google reader such as FEEDLY and THE OLD READER. Click HERE to see that article from Computerworld. He also mentioned that people are begging Google not to shut their reader down so who knows it might stick around after all.
If you read more than two or three blogs on a regular basis I would encourage you to give an RSS Reader a try.