Google Reader

The more I get into blogging, the more I read other peoples' blogs. I figure I'm doing my due diligence (to borrow a phrase from my real job) to find out what other people are talking about and how they are attracting readers. The problem is that it became increasingly harder to keep up with all of the blogs that I was following, so I usually was only checking each one about once a week. Then I read Marian Schembari's post The Ultimate Blog Checklist where she talked about a "reader." She didn't elaborate, but upon further investigation, I found this post, A Blog + A Feed + A Reader = A More Efficient You on BlogHer. It is a great tutorial on how to get started with Google Reader, which is free! I couldn't believe that this was right under my nose the whole time! It posts the newest posts for any blogs you set up a subscription to, all in one place! I got started immediately.

At first I was going to the reader directly. Then I realized that if I used iGoogle as my homepage, I could put the reader front and center, so I'd see all unread posts as soon as I open my browser, along with the weather, and other things. How cool is that? As a result, I'm keeping up with my friends' blogs, and getting information much sooner than I would have otherwise! I can't believe it took me this long to figure it out!

So thank you fellow bloggers for the help! I feel so much more in tune now!