Google Reader Archives - Public Relations, Advertising & Social Media

Today Google said goodbye to its RSS reader, Google Reader. I had previously written on this blog that Google Reader was an excellent tool for creating your own “newspaper.”

Rather than give you a long list of alternatives, I’m just giving you my top recommendation for your new reader: feedly. It seems everyone is talking about it, and the positive vibe is warranted. It has a sleek design, loads quickly, lets you mark articles as read easily and even imports your Google Reader feeds.

I like that you can customize the view, from a list to magazine-style to cards (my favorite–resembles Flipboard) to full articles. For those stories that you like, you can share them easily through Pinterest, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. I also like that you can track your stocks, too, although that feature is temporarily disabled.

Like most products these days, feedly is cloud-based can be accessed through a browser or an app. I’ve got feedly loaded on both my Android phone and tablet.

I often talk about how personalization and customization have become more prevalent through social media. If you think of traditional broadcast media such as TV, newspapers or radio, there’s no real choice by the consumers in the content they receive.

For example, I can’t turn on the radio to an oldies station and pick the next 20 songs. Now, with a tool like Spotify, I can create my own playlist and even share it with others.

Let’s talk about creating your own newspaper. You’ll need an RSS reader, like Google Reader (and in this case, a Gmail account; both are free). From there, you can pick the sections from any newspaper, magazine, blog or online publication and subscribe to its RSS feed.

Maybe you want the New York Times Dining section. You can either click on the orange “Subscribe” button in Google Reader and type in the URL of the section (note: Google Reader doesn’t always locate the RSS feed correctly), or better yet, find the “RSS” link on the actual site. In the case of the New York Times, it’s at the bottom of the page. Now, locate the Dining & Wine link under “Style,” and it’ll take you to a subscribe page. As you’ll see, there’s a Google button you can click, and you’re done!

Finally, sort your “newspaper” in one of two ways. You can either create subfolders based on sections (e.g. news, sports, business, etc.), or you can create a folder just for your one newspaper that includes all the sections you want. You can manage folders in the “Feed settings …” menu.

You can now read your personalized newspaper through a browser or even an app on your smartphone.