blog subcriptions, they’re all the rage
May 9, 2008 by Rachel
Raise your hand if you know what a feedreader is? If you’re hand is in the air, then you are most likely not related to me, and you are so above this post.
For the rest of you (including all my lovely and loyal relatives), I’m about to save you from this tedious scenerio:
Monday morning: “let’s see if Rachel’s put something on her blog…oh, man. What’s it called? It’s got bandits or badgers or something unrelated species. Ah, I’ll just google ‘Rachel, Ava, badgers’…. Oh, badgersontheloose.com. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, here we go. It’s loading. Well, look at that same thing as last Friday.”
Tuesday morning: “I’m sure she’s updated her blog by now. Let’s check. Nope.”
Wednesday morning: “Brilliant, still the non-winning picture at the beach.”
Thursday morning: “Hello! Hello! Rachel, update your blog already!!! I can’t just keep checking back here for nothing.”
Okay, see, that’s not fun for anyone. And really, I know your pain. I have a cousin down in St. Louis who I love dearly and she has four little girls that I love nearly as much. I want to see new pictures and read more stories about her girls. Four girls keep her busy, so updates her blog about once every other month. That’s a lot of times to type in her blog address to see the same smiley picture I’ve seen for the past forty consecutive days.
Also, it’s hard to remember everyone’s blog address. Especially if you memory is anything like the sieve that I call my brain. This is why my feedreader is one my new best friends.
What’s a Feedreader?
A feedreader is a handy little gadget that grabs content from all the blogs you want to read and puts in one place.
Well Then, What’s a Blog Subscription?
It’s like having your favorite magazine delivered to your door each month as opposed to buying it in the checkout line at the grocery store. A blog subscription sends the new content of that blog to the destination of your choice, either your e-mail inbox or a feedreader.
This way you don’t have to remember the address or spend time typing it into your browser and waiting to see if the blog is updated. All the new content from all the blogs that you subscribe to are on one page.
For the past several months, I’ve been using Google Reader and it’s great. It’s completely free, easy to use, and best of all, has saved me so much time.
Sound to good to be true? It isn’t. It really is that great.
Enough Jabbering, Hook Me Up Already…
Abraham at The Pipers has written a tremendously helpful post that gives step-by-step instructions on how to set up subscriptions with Google Reader. So go, check it out, and set up your own feedreader–oh, and don’t forget to to subscribe to Badgers on the Loose.
While I happen to really like checking and rechecking blogs, even if there is nothing new (and, seeing your non-winning—NON-winning!? what!?–photo was a treat over and over), I do love my Google Reader. I have you on there for sure. It’s great, huh? You might read my blog on YOUR reader, too…though I doubt you’d really need to, since I post multiple times a day which, in a lot of ways, is really really sad.
Oh, and I got your email and will respond. Sometime soon.
Thank YOU girls for coming over this week! It was delightful
i do, indeed, subscribe to your blog. now for the best part. i’m really excited to see my personal identicon pop up next to my comment. go, wordpress!!! it just makes me want to comment even more.
oh. and it’s a big identicon. sweet.
Apparently I’ve been too busy chasing toddlers to keep up…who knew such wonderful things existed. Thanks for the advice, I read the blog instructions, have set up my Google Reader and am good to go!…and of course you’re on it.