What's an avid blog reader to do??? Right???
(For those who are not acquainted with 'readers' I posted about them here a while back complete with a little pictorial of how to use (the now retired) google reader)
When Google Reader first made it's announce a few months back I was in a state of panic. I mean seriously, at the time I had about 300 blogs in my feed. (more than even I had though!) and I was seriously wigged out at the thought of losing them. So began my search for a new reader - or alternate reader. I settled on a few to try, OldReader, NetVibes, and Feedly. I posted here about Feedly seemingly becoming my new reader of choice. Well, it's been 4 or 5 months and I can safely say - it's home.
Yes, there was a learning curve and I was struggling with a few features, but feedly has risen to the occassion of taking on thousands of Google Reader transfers and has improved their features. I have NO affiliation with them, just one of their satisfied users.
So here is a quick run through of Feedly - please note that these views probably contain some customizations according to my selections (color, layout, etc)
So this is a basic shot of ALL of Today's posts (today meaning what is new since last I logged in or cleared the cache)
In this case I think there are 86 unread blogposts. The posts themselves are listed in the white section according to time/date which is to the far right.
I hovered over a post about midway down and you can see some icons pop up for social sharing.
(I think if you click the graphic it will load larger)
Next I opened a post so you can see the inline view. I have highlighted some areas and will quickly note what they are/do.
1. These are categories that are user created so you can 'corral' your blogs by type and read what you want when you want.
2. Tags - again, user generated. You can create tags which you can later use to find certain posts. If there is a DIY home project that I KNOW I want to come back to - I tag it and then later I go to the DIY-home tag, click, and all those posts appear and I can easily find the one I want.
3. Save icon. If you don't want to read it now but you want to save it unread for later you can click this tag and then you can clear your 'new' or 'today' view and still find these unread posts easily later. (I didn't highlight it, but i's there on the left sidebar 'saved for later'.
4. The checkmark at the bottom (and in 5 at top) is to mark ALL the posts 'read' - I kind of view it as, I'm done with these, get rid of them. It's unlikely I will actually read all 86 posts (or even open them) so when I read and save what I want then I just click the check and they all go bye-byes.
5. Feedly tools - mark read, settings, refresh, jump to top, and 'next'. But don't let next fool you - it doesn't open the next post, it takes you to back to the whole unread list. Not sure about that one, And actually, being able to go from IN one post to read the next is one feature I cant' find on Feedly and miss from Google Reader.
6. Blog post title - click this and you are whisked away to the actual blog post itself. Mine is set to open in a new tab or window.
7. Feedly social share tools and more. The +Tag feature is there too. This is where you insert a tag for a post you want to keep.
8. Finally - add content. Click this and you can add content to follow. Feedly is a little quirky with this though - if you add an entire blogspot address for example it may say it can't find content, but if you just add PART of the address - like in my case doxallodesigns or doxallodesigns.blogspot - it will bring it right up. So you may have to play with it a little.
