Google RSS News Reader

Have you heard about newsreaders and blogs and RSS and all that stuff, but don't know how to read those things? Are you leery about installing software on your computer? If you answered "yes" to either of those questions, Google has the answer for you. Best of all, it is a free solution.

Google has launched a new service called Google Reader, which allows you to subscribe to RSS feeds and news sources, including the daily edition of this newsletter. Google Reader does not install any software in your computer; all you need is an Internet connection and a regular web browser. It works well on Windows, Macintosh, and Linux systems. Google Reader also works well on dial-up connections. (An RSS news feed is especially valuable to those on slow Internet connections as it delivers more data per second than a regular web page.)

Google Reader is easy to use. If you don't know what news feeds you want to subscribe to, simply enter a word or phrase such as "genealogy" or "Eastman's newsletter," and Google will find news feeds that match your search terms. Then it asks if you want to add the item(s) found to your subscriptions. At any time you can return to Google Reader to read the latest articles on the news feeds you have subscribed to.

Google Reader is available free of charge. You do need to have a Gmail account, however, as you are asked to log on with your Gmail user name and password. Of course, Gmail is also free, so that isn't much of an imposition.

To try Google Reader, go to http://www.google.com/reader

Here are a few genealogy-oriented news feeds to get you started:

Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter:  http://www.eogn.com/index.rdf

EOGN's Other News: http://eogn.typepad.com/othernews/index.rdf

DavidLambertBlog.Com: http://davidlambertblog.com/wp-rss2.php

Genealogy Blog: http://genealogyblog.com/wp-rss2.php

Mac Genealogy: http://www.macgenealogy.org/feed/rss/

You can probably find another hundred or so genealogy-related RSS news feeds, as well as others on almost any topic conceivable. You can use the search capabilities built into Google Reader to find those of interest to you.

Comments

[Renee Zamora]

If you go to Google you have a link in the uppper right hand corner called "Personalize Home". This link will allow you to Personalize your Google Home page. From there you can add blogs you are interested in reading. I have this customized page set as my homepage. Whenever I log onto the internet I see the lastest blogs. You don't need a gmail account to read this information. You only need any email address and password to create it. To "Add Content" you need to select "Create a Section" to search by topics or feed URL's you are interested in. I find the search capabilities very limited, genealogy and family history doesn't bring up many options. You mainly need to know an address to add a feed. I look forward to trying out Google Reader and comparing the two.

Now my question is how does one make your own blog a genealogy-related RSS news feed? I have a blog at http://www.livejournal.com/~rzamor1 but I can't add it to my Personalized Google Home Page. If I use Google's Blog Search I can find it there.

[Chris Dunham]

Renee,
LiveJournal offers ready-made feeds to users. Here's yours:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/rzamor1/data/rss

I was able to add your feed to a Google homepage using this URL.

[Renee Zamora]

Wow! Thanks Chris so much for doing that for me. I didn't know live journal had that ability. Now maybe I can find some more kindred spirits :)

As a side note - I was able to use Google's Reader without having a gmail email account. It accepted my Google homepage signin info. So far it looks like I will have to use both Google Reader and Google Homepage to read all the blogs I am interested in. Not all blogs are the same. It appears that the Reader uses RSS news feeds only. And the Homepage I'm not sure exactly what it wants its a combo of websites and feeds. The point is I can't get all my blogs accepted on just one format.