Freelance Consultant Blog

Updates and Changes to Google Reader

Tuesday · Popularity: 22% · feed, reader, rss 

Google finally made some improvements to their rss feed reader, Google Reader yesterday, but, now my feeds are all messed up. Most of the changes pertain to the iPhone and the interface it uses to show the rss reader functions.

Having an iPhone, I have been waiting for this for a long time, and the new interface is great. I can’t wait to use it when I am traveling next week. You can read the updates here at Brand new Google Reader for iPhone and also Google interface for the iPhone at Macworld and there is more than just the look and feel that has changed.

Changes to Web Version of Reader

I didn’t read to much about changes made to the web version of Google reader, but now, all my “read” items are not showing in my feeds. The only way to get these read items back, that I can tell, is to unsubscribe to each feed one at a time (and I have over 600 feeds) and then add it right back.

When you do this, it pulls in all the feeds from previous posts, plus all the rest you hadn’t seen in a while. If you keep scrolling down, it will keep downloading new feeds. Without doing this step though, once you read the current feed in a subscription, the window shows nothing at all.

I hope that Google fixes this soon, I reference different feeds all the time, and most are feeds I have already read. Anyone else having this problem with this update?

Cool New Feature

One thing they did add was a link in the upper right corner that says show details. This is great, you can click on this link and it will now show you the average number of posts per week for this feed, and also how many subscribers.

Of course, I checked out some of my own blogs and they all said 2 subscribers and 0.0 posts per week. Now I don’t have many subscribers, but I have more than two. I also have several blogs I update on a daily basis, so it is a cool feature, but not quite working yet, perhaps.

Has anyone else seen any other updates to Google Reader over the last few days?

Tags feed, google reader, rss · Comments (2)

May 1st is RSS Feed Awareness Day

Thursday · Popularity: 40% · feed, rss 

So, today seems to be deemed RSS Feed awareness day (or RSS Day) and I had been contacted several times about trying to do a quick post on rss (Really Simple Syndication) feeds. It seems that many people are unaware of the importance, or usefulness of an rss feed, so now is your chance to see what it is all about.

As far as a blog goes, it is probably the single most important feature of your blog, and as a reader, it saves time and effort. Each time a favorite blog of yours updates their content, it sends out a rss feed, which can be read through a free program like Google Reader.

Almost all blogs utilize an rss feed, and now you can generally pull a feed from just about anywhere. There are feeds for news sites, blogs, hobbies, just about anything with active content. This is probably the best video out there on RSS Feeds, so give it quick look, it can explain a feed better than I can.

Don’t forget to sign up for my rss feeds, located at the top right corner of the menu at the top. As you look at the drop down, you will have a link to each blog I author, each with its own separate rss feed. In order to read the content of each post, you will need to subscribe to each blog individually.

Tags reader, rss, rss feed · Comments (0)

Add Value to Your Blog, Offer an RSS Feed in Reverse

Wednesday · Popularity: 27% · feed, reader, rss 

How many feeds to you have in your reader? All of them, right. I just hit the 300+ mark this week and counting, so I don’t quite have all of them yet, but I am working on it. Have you ever subscribed to what someone else is reading instead of what someone else is writing?

Have you ever offered a feed for your own shared or starred items? If not, you might want to consider adding one of these less used features and give some added value to your readers.

I am always fascinated with what others are reading, not just with what other bloggers are writing and I subscribe to a few reader’s feeds. These are not always easy to find because not to many people post their reader feeds, and I am not sure how well this works in any reader other than Google Reader.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags feed, rss, value · Comments (6)