A month with Google Reader
I’ve been using Google Reader for a little over a month now, and it’s made a significant impact on my daily life that it warrants a post.
I figure I used to spend 60-120 minutes a day on several tech sites, blogs and other news feeds. I’ve recovered much of that time, thanks to RSS aggregration, and the handy keyboard shortcuts. Why Google Reader vs. other RSS feeds? Interface, Web-based, and sharing.
The interface is simple - keyboard shortcuts, and the ability to ‘Star’ something means I can go back later and dig into it further. It’s also consistant across Windows XP and OSX, Firefox, IE and Safari. I use 2-3 different machines each day, depending on where I am (the iPhone “mobile” version isn’t a nice as the full browser, but it gets the job done). Web based means it’s always up to date, no matter what machine I login from - work/home/iPhone - I never have to think about syncing devices to stay on top of the feeds. With Google Gears, I can even take it offline if I’ve got a large number of items to read.
However, the coolest feature has to be the Sharing. By tagging articles I find interesting, I’m now linking them both on my blog, and my Facebook page. This means I never need to maintain a ‘links’ page anymore, as it’s got a rapidly growing list of bookmarks for things I find interesting.
Comments
Flickr Photos
[...] time for an update on Google Reader. Since my last post on July 27th, I’ve added a number of new feeds, but overall the numbers of articles [...]