So, time was, not too long past, I was all excited about this service called Blogarithm, that would e-mail a daily digest of all my subscribed blog updates straight to my inbox. It was convenient, although it was getting a bit daunting, to be able to peruse the digest at my leisure. I was starting to think about switching to Google Reader just because it's easier to mark things as read, to look through some blogs but not others, etc. And I'm already a Google whore in terms of my use of other Google products, so it seemed only natural.
This past week, when Blogarithm was bought out by RSSFWD, I realized that the time to switch to Google Reader had come. How did I know this? By the fact that my daily digest started looking like crap. Sorry, RSSFWD, but it's just not working out. You cannot send me a digest in which every single link is in a numbered footnote at the bottom of the message. No, no, no.
So today marks the official completion of the changeover, complete with an enormous number of new subscriptions--especially to kidlitosphere blogs that I hadn't quite gotten around to subscribing to before. I hope to be able to spend my blog-reading time more effectively now. It was a source of frustration, let me tell you.
6 comments:
This is an odd reason, but I like Google Reader because the text is wee. That makes people's entries seem manageable to me. I am too lazy to read long entries. The irony is that I am particularly guilty of the insufferable 2,000-word post.
I subscribe to a lot of Flickr feeds, so I can zip through pictures that I don't want to linger over in Google Reader. It really has made a good change for me -- I think you'll like it.
Yep - and the folder thing in there makes things much more manageable - to have things broken down into categories, such as those blogs upon which I'll comment every time they post (such as this one) & those which I never comment upon. Also having all the news feeds in one place, so I can 'mark all as read' if I'm not up for reading so many. And all of the comments feeds, as well, so that I can take them or leave them.
Chris--It's the 2000 words yn Gymraeg that really get me! (Impressive, but jeez!)
Yup, I like the format and features of Google Reader--"mark all as read" is a great option. David, do you subscribe separately to the comment feeds and then stick them in their own folder?
Once again, I feel so ignorant. I had no idea there were such services available until someone mentioned Google Reader to me a few weeks ago! I wish someone would show me how to use these; I'm that hopeless. I still haven't figured out what to do after you subcribe to a feed.
Yes - I subscribe to blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default/ for the post feeds, and to blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default/ for the comments. I then go into 'manage subscriptions', do a search for /comments/ and, aside from the few other blogs which are on things like wordpress, I've got a complete list of all of the comments.
I include the comments in one folder just to their own, and the posts AND the comments in the different categories.
I rename the comments feed to 'feed name - comments', so that they sort right underneath the post.
I'll email you my subscriptions list (OPML) so you can see what it looks like - and you can figure out how to manipulate that file & upload it into your own reader, if you'd like. It certainly makes life easy, importing opml, rather than doing it by hand!
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