Google Reader

Why should you use Google Reader? If you like reading your stuff, if you are an RSS freak like me, and if you want your daily reads to be all in one place, then Google reader is for you. There are several reasons why it is a great product. 1) Very easy to use Yes, all you have to do is to go to their site. If you already have a Google account, then you'll be set in 5 minutes. If you already know how to add RSS feeds, that's great, if you don't, it is very easy and takes only 5 minutes to learn. All you have to do is to get the RSS link from the website you are following. Almost every content website provides RSS service nowadays. After you get the link, go to your Google reader page. On the left hand side menu, you'll see a title called subscriptions. Just click on it, select "add new subscription" and paste your RSS link. That's basically all you need to do. After that, every time you go on your Google reader, every update on the site you just followed will be posted on your Google reader. You can add as many sites as you like to your Google reader. It is like twitter but more comprehensive and gives you much more control. 2) But I have twitter, why should I bother with Google reader? Good question. Well firstly, twitter is a much more uncontrolled environment. Nowadays almost every site has RSS feed. That means they have a system to feed their updates to people who follow them. All you have to do is to find the link on the blog/site you are following daily. All news websites have one, almost every successful blog has one. What makes Google reader so different is that it is a great platform which gives you so much control. You can organize your feeds under different titles. If you have interests in different niches, you can group all sites belonging to different niches under different headings. You can change your feed titles, you can change how they are displayed and more... I have been using Google reader as my news source. I am a political science graduate student in and I like having different news sources all in one place. Now on Google reader, I have the option to categorize all my news feeds. For example, I categorized them as follows: Middle East, USA, Europe, Asia, Technology, Economy, Science and Space. I get news feeds for all categories from many different news sources like Reuters, Al Jazeera, BBC, CNN, NYT, and others. Imagine the power... So much information, accessible in an organized and clear format... This not only gives you the power to access so much information all in one place, it also gives you the power to easily compare and contrast different content sites. You can then choose what content is better. I strongly recommend all of you to use this service, especially if you have different niches you are interested in. Visiting all those websites and clicking your way through information can be difficult, and you do not have to do that. It is simply a great tool and it gets updated frequently with newly added options. After all, it is from Google!

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