According to Technorati.com—a search engine for blogs—the Technorati engine is currently tracking 99.6 million blogs. That’s a lot of blogs. Thanks to the sheer number of blogs on the Web, there are a few actually worth reading. Every time I stumble upon a new blog that looks interesting, I thank my lucky stars that I embraced the idea of an RSS reader. If you find yourself going to several blogs or news sites every day in hopes of finding updated content, it’s time to get an RSS reader.
RSS readers are simple, free web applications which—once you register for an account—allow you to establish what blogs you want to subscribe to via RSS feeds. Then your reader does all of the work—checking each of the feeds you’ve subscribed to for new or updated posts. Personally, I enjoy both Google Reader and Bloglines, but there are tons of other choices out there (I’ve heard NewsGator is a good one, too).
Once you get your RSS reader setup, you’ll find that keeping up with your favorite blogs is easier than ever. Instead of going to 25 sites a day, or every couple of days, you only go to one: your RSS reader of choice. Plus, you’ll never again face the disappointment of visiting your favorite blog and finding that it hasn’t been updated yet—which is similar to driving all the way to Chick-Fil-A and then realizing that it’s Sunday. Google Reader and Bloglines only show you what has been updated, so you have a bunch of new posts to read through.
If you’ve made it this far and have no idea what RSS is, don’t fret. Watch this video if you have four minutes to spare. If you’ve found another RSS reader to be far superior to Bloglines or Google Reader, I’d love to hear about it.
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=0klgLsSxGsU[/youtube]