Google Reader

You should know that I’m lazy in one way. You see, when it comes to blogging, I’m pretty regular, as can be seen from the post regularity of the past several days. But, when it comes to reading other blogs, I’m a sloth.

You see, I prefer the posts to be delivered to me. If the blogs have e-mail subscriptions, like mine, Ankur’s and Prashant’s, I’m happy. But, if you only have a RSS feed, I would not have read a number of your earlier posts.

But all that’s changing now. Because, I’m switching to Google Reader.

Google Reader, is a simple web application for getting posts from multiple feeds, and presenting them to you in a nice and usable way. If you have a Google Account, you can start using Reader in no time.

Once, you login, the first thing you need to do is add some subscriptions. You can do this by clicking the Add Subscription link on the sidebar. Now, you can either attempt to search for your feed, by using keywords like ‘the’,'tech’ and ‘nut’, or simply navigate to the website/blog, right-click on the link which says RSS or Atom, and click on Copy Link Location. Paste the link location in Reader and then continue. The number of new posts to show via the feed, is generally set by the blogger himself/herself.

Now, that’s all there actually is to Google Reader, but I’m going to go a bit more in-depth about the features.

First of all, like in GMail, you can star posts, to bookmark them. To star a post, click on the star next to the title, or Add star at the bottom of the post. In Reader, all ‘starred’ posts can be found under the Starred category on the sidebar.

Now, one of the most important things you can do with Reader is sharing your posts. By default, your posts are all private. No one can know what you subscribe to. But by sharing certain posts, they become public. Here’s what you need to do, in order to take full advantage of the Share function.

First, click on Settings at the top-right of the screen, and, subsequently, on the Friends tab. Here, you can view your Google Profile, by clicking on View full profile under your profile. The page it leads you to also allows you to edit your profile. Add some information about yourself.

Next, invite some buddies with whom you want to share posts you find interesting. Those of your GMail contacts who have Google Accounts should automatically have been listed. Check the ones you want to add.

Next, you can also add notes to shared items, the button is right next to the Share button. In fact, if you select Notes from the sidebar, you can also add notes which are not related to any post in particular…just notes!

Pretty nifty thing…Google Reader…