Save Time and Stay Informed With Google Reader

If you like to read news online or have blogs you follow, you can save a whole heck of a lot of time by subscribing to RSS feeds.  RSS feeds allow a single program to display articles or any type of new listing a website publishes.

There are many types of media that can be in feeds.  News and Blog articles are the most common use but podcasts, videos, new products for sale and searches can also be subscribed to.

RSS is a good way to be alerted to new content.  One time there was a new movie that my Spanish speaking wife really wanted to see.  I had the movie but there were no subtitles for it.  The site where I get subtitles had an RSS feed feature on their search.  Every day it would search for the subtitles I wanted and when someone finally uploaded them, I was sent a notice to my RSS feed that the subtitles I wanted were in.

Think of Google Reader as a newspaper in which you are the publisher.  You choose who contributes to it and how the articles are arranged. Having tested a few readers, I have found Google Reader to be the best.

My favorite use of RSS feeds is for podcasts.  I don’t have to go to the web sites of my favourite radio stations, I just check my reader and when there is a new podcast I want, to listen to, I click on it and it plays from the web page. Even if you get most of your news from one site, Google reader can be helpful.

Many news sites have more than one feed so you can subscribe to the ones that interest you.  That way you don’t have to waste time navigating around the sections that don’t interest you. It’s easy to sign up for Google Reader.  It is a web based application so you don’t have to download anything.  Just sign in and when you visit your favourite news site or blog, subscribe to the RSS feed that interests you.