Google Reader

From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia, by MultiMedia

On October 7th 2005, Google launched Google Reader, a feed reader, or "news aggregator", capable of reading Atom and RSS feeds. Google Reader is accessed through a web browser and features an interface similar to Gmail. Its main online competitors are My Yahoo!,Newsgatorand Bloglines.

Using Google Reader

Requirements

To use Google Reader, you will need the one of the following browsers:

• IE 6
• Firefox 1.0+
• Safari 1.3+
• Netscape 7.2+
• Mozilla 1.7+

You will also need a Google Account, which is free of charge. In all cases, JavaScript must be enabled for Google Reader to work.

Tips and Tricks

Here are the keyboard shortcuts for using Google Reader more efficiently.

• j next - view the next item in your reading list
• k prev - view the previous item
• n page down - scroll down a page in your reading list
• p page up - scroll up a page
• h top - go to the top of your reading list
• r refresh - refresh your reading list
• s star - star the current item

To resize the item view you simply need to adjust your browser window size.

To add a "Add To Google Reader" button to your own webpage visit the Google Reader Button link below. The button will alow readers on you website to add your site feed to Google Reader with a click of a button. No longer will users need to copy and re-paste the RSS or Atom feed URL.

Feeds

You can subscribe to feeds using either Google Reader's search function, or by entering in the exact URL of the RSS or Atom feed. New posts from your feeds are then shown on the left-hand side of the screen. You can then order that list by date or relevance.

Politics and Google Reader

So why has Google created this? Where is it going? Well, one of Google's aims is to collect information, and Google Reader is doing just this in two primary ways:

• Providing Google with information about people's favorite feeds,
• Providing the user with a way of sorting their feeds.

What Google needs to do now is link this and their other products together; they are creating a lot of different tools, but they are not linked to provide an efficient service. This implies that Google is still experimenting with web technology and that someday you feeds will be the main source of news and information for a user, and that feeds will be directly linked to search results and personalized home pages.

External link

Google Pages:

• Google Reader

Tutorials:

• Google Reader Button (via Skatter Tech)

Reviews:

• Google Reader review (via Outer Court)
• Another Review

Google Guide made by MultiMedia | Free content and software

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.