Okay, so Google Reader is the CLEAR winner. I checked it out and you can easily export the feeds
you're following in another aggregator and then upload them to Google
Reader. You can be all set-up and transitioned-over in less than 5
minutes. Dead serious. Then, if you install a Google Reader 'Next' button
in your browser's bookmark bar, you can click from one new post to
another and read each post in its original blog setting where it belongs. All great tips from you guys — thanks for chiming in!
Now I'm exploring Twitter.
Ya, I took my time getting around to it. I think they invited me to the beta of Twitter
three years ago or so. I'm getting serious deja vu on their site.
Let me say, I love the simplicity of their concept. 'You know, for
blogging.' Have you seen The Hudsucker Proxy (one of my all-time favorite movies!)? If not, then that's what you should do for fun this weekend.
Yes! Google Reader is a must! I use it and love it! I also use twitter! 🙂 Would Love, Love, Love! for you to be on it!
I’m “following” you on Twitter now!! Don’t you think that sounds a bit stalker-ish?? Anyway, we have the same birthday so that’s something in common! See you on Twitter 🙂
Thanks Heather – I swapped from Bloglines a few months ago to Google reader but had no idea about the next button – brilliant. thanks for sharing.
Plus looking forward to some more fab fabric from you!
I tried bloglines and way prefer google reader. Your article was really helpful and I never knew about the ‘next’ button which is just fab. oh and I got your trashties the other week and they are just great, didn’t think they would stay in my hair but they do, amazing. Thanks. xx
Yep, I’m a Google Reader convert too…I like being able to scroll through past posts, and the interface is overall nicer than Bloglines at this point.
Funny! I’m just starting out on Twitter too…so many things to keep me so distracted from everything else I want to do! But so much fun…
I pulled all my favorite blogs into Google Reader and it is so much easier and faster to read them now. I highly recommend it!
I converted to Google Reader after reading all the raves about it on your last post and love it. And I’ve just started twittering again too. Off to add you. 🙂 Got your trash ties a few weeks ago and LOVE them. Genius!! 🙂
Hi Heather…after your last post, I went up and signed up for bloglines. How great it was! After reading this one, I’ve started google reader, but I must be missing something. It doesn’t seem as easy as bloglines was, and i can’t figure out how to get the ‘next’ button. I didn’t think I was that computer illiterate.
I love Twitter and have been using it for over a years now (signed up and taught by my techie Google son). It works so well to keep in touch with a select small group or family or friends who may be separated by miles but its fun to get little updates about what others in my Twitter circle are doing on my cellphone (particularly from my sons in California). However, I see these days that too many people are just using Twitter as a MARKETING tool for their website or products, and I find that really annoying and cheapens it and makes it more like SPAM.
Thanks for the Google Next Button tip! I love Google Reader, but I’ve just been reading blogs there and I miss the look of seeing the individual blogs. I’ll try it!! Hudsucker Proxy is also one of my favorite flicks!! Maybe I will watch it this weekend again :o)
I love google reader and have only had since I read you last post. I read tons of blogs everyday and this is so much easier than go through my favorites and clicking on each one hoping for a new post to read. Thanks for the tip !!
You know for kids. My husband and I watch that every New Years Eve since Y2K!
I completely agree. It’s the best blog subscription site out there. Highly recommend to others who want to keep up with their favorite bloggers. As I am currently doing with this one!
SummerSadie — You can get to the Next button by clicking on the ‘Settings’ tab at the upper right of Google Reader account. Then click on the “Goodies” tab.
I LOVE googlereader. That’s how I keep up on my blogs and news.
I love GoogleReader, too. I would seriously love it if you would change the RSS settings on your blog to show the whole post in Google Reader – right now, it just shows snippets and I have to click through to your blog to read the entire posting.
Bless you all! After reading Heather’s post, and then all the comments, I got started on GoogleReader. After reading today’s comments, I added the next button…now I’ll have so much more time to do things, and still be able to keep up on my blog reading. Thanks for sharing. Off to make stuff!
Yay! You’re on Twitter!! Can hardly wait to “follow” you….thanks for the advice on the feeds. I’ll be putting that tidbit to good use soon.
Yes, on the Hudsucker Proxy! It is one of my alltime favorites too, and the least appreciated of the Coen Brothers movies. I think that it is brilliant, and so very funny.
I love Reader! I just posted about it yesterday too. I didn’t know about this Next button – but I tried it and I’m in love. And I love that it marks it as read. Thanks!!
I love google reader, that’s what I use.
Heather, A major function of Twitter is to have a conversation with you and those who follow you or you follow. It doesn’t look like you’re following anyone. You might find it interesting to expand the conversation and follow some of those that are following you.
I am following you too!
twitter.com/pinklemonadebag
Tweet ya later!
I just now getting into Twitter as well! I want to follow you!!!
I like Google Reader, awesome. And I am exploring Twitter as well, but I will totally follow you 🙂
Thanks, Courtney. I definitely plan to. I’m still figuring out the technical end of where to have these messages sent to before I start following hundreds of Twitters. My inbox is out of control as it is. And I don’t want important business emails to get lost. I might have to upgrade my mobile phone plan or set up a new email address. Still working on it. Thanks for the tip!
Hey there
I never used to use the Next button because I subscribe to all different kinds of blogs and store them in folders – I didn’t like flitting between ‘tags’ – but thanks to you, I had another look and they have now introduced a tag-specific ‘Next’ button which is brill (epsecially since it is really only the craft and ‘daily reads’ blogs that I would care about seeing in their natural environment).
Thank you!
I´m using GoogleReader. 🙂 I do prefer to read the blogs ON Googlereader so I dont have to open up the blogs and read them at their sites, but there are sites that dont aloud tha. Like yours Heather 😉 Im usually dropping those sites fast from my bloglist, but there are a couple of sites that I continue to read even when they make my day harder…
Cheers!
I couldn’t handle actually following blogs until I learned how to use Google Reader….so for me, it has actually increased my computer-using time, but also my enjoyment, so c’est la vie.
HI Heather….thanks for your post on google reader it is a wonderfull tool. I am having trouble installing the next button(i am new to computer skills) I haven’t been able to drag the next button to the bookmark bar because I don’t know where or what it is…Could you please advise…..thanks again…..claudia
Well, I must say that your tutorial helped me. I use gmail and didn’t have any idea what Google Reader was until I read your post. I love it!!
Wish I’d have known about exporting from bloglines to google reader before I entered by hand several hundred blog addresses. Oops! Oh well. Excited about the “next” button!
I’ve never seen anyone else say that Hudsucker Proxy is one of their favorites so I had to comment! I LOVE that movie. The first time I saw it I was a freshman in college and I think I spent my whole year trying to dress and talk and be a awesome as Jennifer Jason Leigh was in that movie. I haven’t seen it in forever I need to pull it out again!
Thanks Heather…I’ve spent most of the day creating my Google Reader and love it. I had a lot of interuptions…so that’ why it took me all day…lol
See you at Inspired! Fondly, Roberta
If you put your blog setting so that it shows full posts in google reader instead of three line blurbs, people like me who read blogs via the reader are more likely to see your blog when you update.
I like Twitter but also kind of think it may just be a time sucker! It does provide a laugh or two throughout the day.
Time-suckers are such bliss when you have a mucky, stressful project to properly avoid.
Excellent information, thank you so much!!
I think I might be the only person on the internet who uses iGoogle to follow blogs. I tried Reader and just didn’t like it, so I’ve stuck with iGoogle for 2 or 3 years.
I prefer it because I have all of my Tabs set up, so I have my favorite blogs divided up into different “categories,” (You’re in Artsy/Craftsy, Heather!) and you can further arrange the blogs within each Tab/category so that your favorite-favorites are at the top (or left-hand column, if you prefer reading them in that order). You can mouse-over the blog topics to preview the entries, so it’s easy to skip over the things that aren’t vitally interesting. As there are 116 blogs on my iGoogle, it’s good a nice feature to have! 🙂
I guess I’m in the minority, though, which is pretty much on-par with my personality and the way I do things! LOL
Heather- I just had to add, Magic Shell has always made me wonder. As a kid, I loved it, as a grown-up…..just a bit scared.
I don’t use the Next/Previous buttons. I like just pressing N on my keyboard. 🙂 It’s the lazy woman’s way.
Is google reader only good for people who follow many blogs?
i want to know if it will be useful for me, what i do is i just check my email(hotmail), use facebook, go on youtube and thats my basic stuff and then i do some extra searching up stuff and all that. i dont check blogs everyday or anything. so is google reader gonna be useful for me?