Thursday, March 14, 2013

Replacing Google Reader with Feedly

Note: Last night there was a mass exodus to Feedly and they are having a few technical difficulties.  Give it a few days and I'm sure everything will work fine.  As you can imagine, their servers and staff are under an enormous amount of pressure right now.  Be Patient!

You guys know that I love to research things and I really had fun with this one.  I know what I like and to tell you the truth, I didn't really like Google Reader.  Perhaps this is all for the best and now I have the chance to be truly happy with my reader experience.

Let's get started!


You need to connect Feedly to your existing Google Reader.  They will do all of the work for you...just click on the button.  Feedly also tells us that when Google Reader shuts down, they will have a program in place that will retain all of our information.  No Worries!


All of your categories are on the left.  You are putting your blogs into lists right?  I've been sorting blogs like this for years and it makes it so much easier to read.  Feedly has several different ways for you to view your blogs.  Let's go over them now.

If you want it to look something like your old reader then you will want to select the Titles view.  When you click on the little wheel, the list will come up.  Experiment with the different views until you find something you like.



When you click on a title, it will open the post up in the reader....like this.


To go to the blog so that you can comment, which you totally should because we all love to hear from our readers and it helps us sleep at night when we get comments, click on the title again.

Just a note here that this is also where you can share this wonderful post with YOUR friends.  You can google+, tweet, Facebook and email.  You will find those options right under the post title.  See that little +tag up there?  This is where you can tag a post that you want to save for future reference.  Those tags will appear under your lists on the left hand side.


There is one little button I need to warn you about.  The check mark.


If you want to mark your entire list as READ.  Go ahead and click that.  It will ask you (unless you turn that notification off) if you REALLY want to mark all as read.  I've hit it a few times already and panicked.     

If you want to go directly to a blog (so you can comment), there is an option under the Organize tab that is located right next to your pretty face on the left hand side.  



This is also where you can move blogs to a different list, and remove from your reader. 



If you have any question please ask them in the comments and I'll respond.  If I come up with anymore tips, I'll share them on my facebook page

13 comments:

  1. Great post! I moved to feedly last night and put the app on my phone too. I'm all set. So handy!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Awesome!

      Thanks for tweeting my post! You rock!

      Delete
  2. I just saw that about Google Reader and had already broken down and started using the Followers gadget again to keep track of my favorite blogs. (I hate using that thing b/c it makes blogs show up on my Dashboard completely unorganized!) I'll check out Feedly. I'm guessing it's free? I really hate change...

    ReplyDelete
  3. This organization and awesome research is why they just need to go ahead and let you be in charge of all of the PTA's in the land! Thank you so much for breaking all of this down for us!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I downloaded Feedly and it's very pretty. I had a hard time adding a new blog subscription? Do you know how to do that? The "add website" button didn't work, but maybe it was just because of the giant influx of traffic they had last night.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I got it to work. I think the kinks are all out now.

      Delete
  5. Thank you for this. I've gone so far as to connect my reader to Feedly, but that's it. I'll be referring back to this for sure.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I love you! I didn't know Reader was going away! But, I'm very grateful to have your tutorial on a similar service.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Yea!!! Great tutorial. And you have a very good blog you up in your new reader there :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. I just switched over today. I like it and I figured out most of it, pretty easy since I could figure it out. Is there the equivalent of a Subscribe Button for my toolbar? Also once you mark something as read, it does not go away? Is that part of the glitch? ~Diane

    ReplyDelete

I love you. You are my best friend! Your hair looks fantastic today!