Introduction to Using Google Reader

Series Summary

Google Reader is a Web-based aggregator, capable of reading Atom and RSS feeds online or offline. Users can subscribe to feeds with Google Reader's search function, or by entering in the URL of the RSS or Atom feed. New posts from your feeds are then shown on the left side of the screen. Items can also be organized with labels, as well as being able to create "Starred Items" for easy access. With Google Reader, you can have easy access to your favorite news stories or blogs.

If you want to use Google Reader, you probably have used Google or have a Gmail account. If not, then this video will show you how it's still easy to use Google Reader. In this free video series, our expert will show you how to use the Google Reader aggregator to view your favorite news stories and blogs by explaining how to subscribe to RSS feeds, how to use tags and bookmarks, and how to search in Google Reader. You'll also find out how to use Google Reader on your cell phone or while offline! Discover new blogs and news stories related to what you like, and organize your favorites with Google Reader.

Video Transcript

"Hi. In this series I'm going to be showing you how to use Google Reader. And what Google Reader is, is it's an RSS feeder from Google. And what an RSS feeder is if you don't know what that means, it basically aggregates news stories from individual sites all around the web. So, if there is a site, say like the New York Times, if they're going to release news stories throughout the day, instead of having to go to that site to see them you can look at those stories right here in Google Reader. As, we go on through these videos I'm showing you how to use Google Reader you'll understand that more. But, that not only includes like news sites, that?s any kind of like blog out there and stuff like that. And I'll show you a whole bunch of those as we go on. The one thing I like about Google Reader is they have the option to discover, which lets you find a new site that maybe you didn't know about that would be interesting to you and then you can read them in your Google Reader. What it does is it puts it all in a row so you can choose to look at just a particular website like the New York Times and then you see all their stories or you can choose to look at all the news stories from all your blogs all at once. So, to get started using Google Reader, you need to have a Google account for one. Probably the easiest way to get a Google account is just to sign up for GMail. Even if you're not going to use GMail, I recommend it, because it's great email program. So, you just want to go to GMail.com or search for GMail and come to this page. This is what you should see GMail's homepage. And, then you want to go sign up for GMail down here. And, now you just go through this "create an account" section. Now, you want to inter in all of your information and anything else they ask you for. And then you want to read through the terms of service and if you accept you click "I accept. Create my account." And then you'll be ready to use Google Reader and I'll be showing you how to use all the features and basics of Google Reader in the following clips."