Switching to Google Reader

by Eric Friedman

I have been an avid RSS user for years now. In fact I constantly point people to an article I wrote awhile back describing RSS for beginners. I am not sure how many people I have setup using Bloglines but today I am finally switching to Google Reader. The final straw for me was trying to find a simple and easy solution to keep my feeds up to date and read them while on a plane without Internet access. Google Reader coupled with Google Gears provided a simple 1-2-3 approach that I will now be using moving forward. I simple click a small link, now that Google Gears is installed, to go offline and the functionality is the same.

Many readers of this blog look for the best ways to integrate, sort, find, and read new information. With information overload becoming such a problem I figured I would share my own dealings and possible solution to the problem.

I have also been reading up on the benefits of using Google Reader and found the following helpful links: First I have to build a three dimensional organization structure to my feeds. Next up is starting to tag all my articles and start using the search features.

How did I make the switch from using Bloglines?

1. I went back to the old www.bloglines.com as I have been using beta.bloglines.com for some time to find the “Export” option.
2. I exported my .OPML file
3. Opened up Google Reader and imported all my feeds in

That’s it!

The refreshing part of this process is that all my feeds were marked as read so I lost my “place” if you will but I rarely am able to read everything anyway. Starting fresh I decided to try to keep things organized and I am starting to discover the magic of Google Reader Keyboard shortcuts. Yes, I know Bloglines has them too, but these are better:)

As explained above and using some new organization techniques I think I will finally be happy to add more feeds – something I have not done in awhile considering I usually have 4000+ unread items and 170 feeds.

I am on my way to becoming a Knowledge Management Ninja.

I will post my thoughts after some serious use. I am however looking forward to seeing my stats – although slightly terrifying, I think this data will be somewhat useful. I am already seeing the benefit of Google Reader as the suggestions it has pulled together actually make contextual sense to what I want to be reading based on my 170 feeds.

The tagging system seems great and I may also be migrating from del.icio.us…

One thing that I keep thinking is that just about every business should be afraid of Google getting into their territory. There are few startups that I see these days that cannot be dominated by Google with just a few shorts weeksmonths of coding and a launch to their userbase.

Sorry Bloglines!

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