Video! Google Reader Tricks for Craft Bloggers

This was awesome! Just 2 days ago I went thru all my favourites & organized them in Google Reader so this was a nice refresher on using it. Never thought to add my own blog to the reader though, I'm going to do that right now! :D

Awesome, Liz! So glad to be of help!

Wow, that was super helpful. I've had a google reader set up for a while and haven't been using. Seemed way too overwhelming. I am totally hooked now that I know all about the cool tagging and search features. Awesome!! Thanks so much for taking the time to help us all out.

Yay! My pleasure, Regina. I'm glad it was helpful.

great tips, just implemented a lot of them. one question. The box in the lower left for "Subscriptions" seems to stay organized for you. the folders at the top, subscriptions in the middle and tags down below. Did you do this manually or is there an option? My folders get mixed in with my tabs and subs and i wondered if there was a quick fix.. thanks! and thanks for the great video!

Try this, Kelly - there's a tiny arrow to the right of the word "Subscriptions." Click on that, and you'll have some options for re-organizing your subscriptions, folders, and tags.

perfect, i looked everywhere and never clicked on that little arrow. thank you :)

Sure thing! It took me well over a year to discover it myself. :-)

Awesome advice! I don't use my Google reader at all, I need to, and now I know how to make it easier.
Thanks for sharing!
~Liz

Thanks, Diane! this is an awesome little video. using stars & tags & the search function are all new tricks for me that i know will be very helpful. So is the tip about subscribing to your own feed. You rock! : )

Just last night, after adding more that 100 crafty blogs in my reader, I was crying out for help. How in the world can one keep up with all this reading and do some crafting and living also...?
Great tips and tricks, some of them new to me, even if I'm using Google reader for some time now.
Thanks.

My goodness, Anka - you added more than 100 blogs at once? Wow. That
is indeed a lot of new material to absorb.

I don't know if you've heard it, but Rachel Klein, who produces the
One Pretty Thing blog, has a lot of tips for keeping up with lots of
craft blogs at once in this podcast: http://www.craftypod.com/2009/11/06/craftypod-1...

I found you via One Pretty Thing. I knew Google Reader must do more than I ever did with it. This is great tutorial. I can't tell you how excited I am about using all these tips. Thank you.

Thanks for stopping by, Diane! (Excellent name!) :-)

Love this post. Thank you so much for creating it! I even shared this on my blog because I've noticed that a lot of people don't know about this awesome tool! fancymelissa.blogspot.com

Awesome, Melissa - thanks for spreading the word!

Sister D! My HERO! What great info and thank you soooooo much for presenting it in this really easy-too-understand tutorial. Thank you again for your amazing generosity and patience with us students.

Aw, thanks, Kathleen! I'm so glad you found it helpful. XO

Cannot tell you how WONDERFUL and useful and incredible helpful and timely and...well WONDERFUL this video was. I use google reader for my blog reading but had no idea about all of the tools and timesavers this offered. Thank you thank you thank you! I know that some bloggers complain or state that they are not sure how their content is received...well super duper thumbs up to you.

Thank you so much, Nikki! That's so kind of you!

I use Good Reader like a fiend, but my tags don't show up in my left pane with my subscriptions. Dunno why. Great video though!

Check your settings. If you have "show updated" then tags won't show up if they've already been read. But they will show up if you have "show all".

Wow! I'm not the crafty sort, but I do follow a fair number of blogs. You've made my day! I found this post via MomAdvice.com

Thanks for stopping by, Julie! I'm glad you liked the video!

Fantastic tutorial! thankyou :)

fantastic, thanks :)

you can also just drag and drop into folders. love google reader! wish i could keep up with it! : )

OMG! i am addicted to my GR but i swear i have never noticed all of those tabs and buttons! i think it's the same feature in my brain that allows me to not see any of the ads on my yahoo mail and other ad-filled sites (of course i do notice the cute crafty ads for indie businesses on craft blogs though!). i guess i need to adjust my mental filter settings because some of that peripheral stuff is actually GOOD ;n)

Ok... how come I've never seen that Feed Seetings tab before?!!! You've just saved me tons of time. THANK YOU! And... yeah lookie me there! :)

Thank you for starring in my video! :-)

Another really great feature is the keyboard shortcuts. To see them all type the question mark on your keyboard. I use j and k to navigate all the time. And you can star and tag items and all sorts of things with a key or two.

Great suggestions, Kuky - thank you!

Oooh this video is super useful! I love me some Google Reader. I don't know what I would do without that search feature. I must use it ten times a day. Thanks so much for making this! I'll be linking.

You, my friend, are the undisputed all-time Google Reader Ninja.

Wow. This is just great! And I really appreciate the tool that you used to make this video for the teeming millions. I'm used to watching screencasts for software tutorials and I find it the easiest way to learn computer-y type things. I wonder how else it could be used for crafty awesomeness? Thanks for taking the time to make this and I look forward to you making more casts in the future!

Thanks, Michelle! I so agree - all kinds of crafty potential for this
stuff!

Didn't learn anything new but did confirm my love for Google Reader. These organizational tools have allowed me to keep a handle on a real obsession-blogs. Just assumed everybody knew about this since I'm pretty techno inept. Just started using iGoogle and lovin' that too.Try it.

Thanks so much. I just recently started using Google Reader as I realized I needed some help beyond bookmarks. I had no idea about all of the stuff you covered. Thanks again for taking the time to keep us all informed.

Thank you, Ellen!

Cool. I have a whopping 23 subscribers! ;-)

Actually, it would be good to mention that there's a little bug in the
subscriber counts. If you don't see them change over time, try
unsubscribing from your blog and re-subscribing. We thought my Mom had
only 15 subscribers for the longest time, and when we resubbed, lo and
behold, there were more!

Your Mom with only 15 subscribers? Impossible! ;-) Thanks for the suggestion. I unsubbed and resubbed and still have 23 subscribers.

Just give it time, my friend!

Wow! I had no idea that this feature was availble! I have been saving everything under the favorites bar since I am computer challenged at times. I will have to give this some exploring. I am a first time listener to the craftypod. Thanks so much.

My pleasure, Janet! Thanks for stopping by!

Very cool post! I had no idea that you could tag posts and organize them like bookmarks. I organize blog posts that I want to keep track of on delicious - I wish that I knew earlier that I could do it all in one place!

Thanks so much - that is really great info I'm an avid reader fan, but I learned a few things!

This is the coolest.

I am a huge fan of Google Reader and didn't know about half these tricks. Thanks Diane! This was super helpful!

Thank you for putting together this great guide! I use a lot of the same techniques as you, but I have to say my favorite part was your 500 unread items! I've been culling my reader subscriptions and have my unreads down to around 200. I still can't manage to read them all!

Heh! I pretty much always have that many. I gave up stressing about
it. :-)

Wow I had no idea that Google reader had those features. I am off to organize! Thanks so much for sharing.

Oh great!! Thank you so much Diane it is very helpfull

Thanks a lot for that interesting video, I didn't know there were those archiving and search functions in Google Reader! I'm currently using Netvibes as it allows me to have both public pages that acts as a thematic blogroll for my blog/site and private pages where I sort blogs through reading frequency criterias (for my resources and inspiration folders, I use a desktop application called Notebook). Your solution is interesting as everything is online and can be found in any computer you may use, but I must admit there's one thing that always makes me sigh when I try a Google application: the user interface. Silly as it sounds, I have difficulties using an app when I find the interface is dull... But I'll definitely keep your video in mind in case I want to make a switch in spite of that, so thank your for taking the time to make that informative video!

Not silly at all, Adelie - everyone has her own preferences. I tried Netvibes a while back, and liked its functionality, but the user interface was too visually crowded for me. To each her own! :-)

Thanks so much for this tutorial. I just started back in to user reader over a month ago and these features will really come in handy.

I'm also going to link up your tutorial over at Scrappersonline:

http://www.scrappersonline.com/forums/showthrea...

Holey Moley! I had not looked that deeply into Google Reader to know some of the things you have shared! I use Google Reader extensively, but had no idea that I could so easily back reference items of interest. Everything you showed in your video was new to me. Thanks, Diane!

Hah! I already have a Bachelor's in Reader and didn't even know it :D I do a lot of that, but I haven't been using tags as efficiently as I could. Thanks for the ideas!

I'll add something I do in Google Reader -
A lot of times you can subscribe to the comments on a particular post on someone's blog, so that you can follow that conversation. I used to make comments on a post and then forget all about it, and miss out on good info. Now I have a folder just for that.

Ooh, that's a beauty suggestion! Thanks, Skulleigh!

Wo! Awesome video, Diane. :-D And it comes just in time as I was wondering how to use my reader to it's maximum.
Thanks! :-)

Yay! I'm glad it was good timing, Fanie!