Google Reader

I finally broke down and started using Google Reader. If you haven’t checked it out, you really should.

I used to keep things on an iGoogle page. Then I got mad at them (not enough to kill my gmail account, but still…) and moved to a My Yahoo page.

But either way, I’m an “out of sight, out of mind” person. So if I tried to organize the blogs I follow into tabs, I’d forget to check the other tabs. So now, it’s the first button on my bookmarks toolbar, and one click opens up the stuff I read.

My big resistance to Google Reader is that it felt like e-mail, and I didn’t want another inbox. I already get tons of e-mail and it’s a lot of work to keep it current. And I hate the “unread messages” indicator staring at me constantly, which is why I had never put blog feeds in Microsoft Outlook.

But you know what? It’s working well for me. With a single click, I can pop open Google Reader, and I know instantly what I haven’t read yet. With another click, I can close the window with no prompt constantly telling my brain that something is undone.

And the other cool thing is folders. I can categorize the blogs I read, without losing sight of them. Pretty cool.

How do you like to read blogs? What blogs am I not following that I should?

PS to Josh Morgan: Just so you know, I organize blogs topically. So you’re under Business, despite being a friend. Didn’t want to mix your high-minded prose in with pictures of someone’s baby.