I referenced feed readers a few days ago, and ZenPanda commented that she didn’t know how to use them; I understand, because until I started using Bloglines I didn’t understand feed readers, either, and those little RSS buttons and talk of “syndication” confused me. But now that I do understand, I can’t imagine reading blogs any other way. So although I am far from an expert, here’s what you need to know in order to understand and use a feed reader.

The whole point of blogs - and other websites that are frequently updated, such as news and social sites - is that new content is published regularly. For instance, I publish something on my blog at least once per day (well, try to). Other blogs - such as Instapundit and MetaFilter - publish new material several times every day. And most bloggers read many blogs on a regular basis. So let’s assume that I have a blogroll (a roster of sites that I read daily) that contains 100 different websites. If all of those sites contained a link on my homepage, I would have to click on every single one of those links in order to read the newest content. If you only read a few sites daily, that may not sound like a big deal, but when you’re up into the dozens or scores of sites, it can take a while to click through each and every link just to find out which sites have published new content. And that is where feed readers enter the picture. (more…)

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When “feed readers” first came into use several years ago, I didn’t really understand them, nor did I think that they were of any value to me. Oh, how wrong I was. Now, after nearly two years of using it, I can’t imagine life without Bloglines - even more so since two weeks ago they incorporated (partnered with?) the way-cool Skweezer folks. I’ve been using Skweezer on my cell phone since December, and have occasionally dreamed that Bloglines and Skweezer would one day team up. So now, the result of that partnership is that when I am catching up on my reading on my cell phone, and I click on a link in my Bloglines feed, I get directed to the “skweezed” page instead of the full page. Ah, geek nirvana! But…several months ago, I did give the Google Reader a spin but was not impressed; compared to the sleek, small, and always-works Bloglines, there didn’t seem to be any advantage, as noted by Techcrunch at the time. But the last few days has seen quite a lot of praise for the New & Improved Google Reader, and after giving it a second chance, I’m much more impressed. It’s accessible from my cell phone, too, which is one of my primary concerns. Do I like Google Reader better than Bloglines? No. Not yet, anyway. But I will be giving it a spin every few days to see how it stands up to repeated use and if it “grows” on me. It would take a lot to move me from Bloglines; does Google have what it takes?