Feedly Does More Than RSS

Since I moved my "stuff" from Google Reader to Feedly, I have been discovering more and more about some of the great features that Feedly offers, that Google Reader did not.  I had found in the past while using Google Reader that there were some sites offering updates and news that Google Reader could not recognize as appropriate RSS feed, and so did not display in my Reader.  So, I had to resort to accepting email notifications of any updates or news from those sites, which is not, I find, a very efficient way of managing content and data, especially with updates and news.

Here is an example if that sounds a bit confusing.  I like receiving notifications when ever there are new videos uploaded to certain YouTube channels I follow - like Edutopia, Geogebra, SMART Technologies, etc.  However, receiving notifications through email just becomes another task in order to keep my inbox clear; or the emails sit in a folder filling up my space.

Now, I send all of my YouTube feed updates to Feedly.  Feedly is much more friendly when collecting content from most websites.  Much more that Google Reader was.

What is RSS?

Do you see this symbol ever time you go to a Blog, news site, forum, etc.  This is the icon that allows you to subscribe to the hosts RSS feeds.  What is RSS and what are the benefits of RSS professionally and personally.  There are a couple of different interpretations of this acronym, however this site gives a decent explanation.  Check out Wikipedia's version.

Instead of constantly checking the latest updates on your favorite websites or bookmarking all of their sites, you can collect, organize and manage them through subscriptions in one place.  As you may have read in the above links, in order to collect, organize and manage your subscriptions, you need a Reader that will aggregate these for you.  There are many different ones available for free.  I use Google Reader.  It's easy to use and it's right in my Google account.

Now, what are the benefits?

I have over 50 RSS subscriptions that I can keep tabs on from time to time.  Instead of visiting all of these websites, I go to my Reader and browse through them all for anything that looks interesting to me.  The RSS Reader allows you to categorize using folders and tags.  I have an easily accessable list of all of my feeds to choose from.  I can organize them by date so I see the latest and greatest.  I can mark posts older than a day, a week, or two weeks as "read" to clear any clutter.

Below is a video from CommonCraft that gives a simple explanation of RSS feed and a RSS reader.

Google Reader

Another great procduct from Google than can save headaches and time.

Do you like to follow Blogs or any news-related web site like CNN or The New York Times?  Do you utilize RSS?  Then Google Reader is right up your ally.

In a nutshell Google Reader collects all of those feeds, news, and updates and organizes (aggregates) them in one location that you can easily manage.  I follow almost 100 blogs, news sites and RSS feeds for information of various kinds.  Instead of bookmarking all of these sites and scrolling and flipping through web pages to find material, I can view and save snippets that lead me to the main articles.  I can sort and manage all of these updates and read the ones that I find pertinent for me.  You can also share your favorites with others.


Another great feature is that I can tie in my Google Alerts.  When I apply for a Google Alert, I have them sent to my Reader, so that I can view and manage them in one place.

For more information on Google Alerts view my post.


For more details visit Google Reader Help

For more information on RSS, please visit my RSS blog post.

Google Alerts

Google Alerts is a great tool to stay in the loop on any current event faster than the morning paper or TV news.  It's a great tool professionally and personally.  Great for Social Studies teachers.

Google's Help explains.

I have been collecting Alerts on Wikileaks, Ai Weiwei (Chinese government detained Artist), and the Government Shutdown.  I have put my Alert settings to send me any kind of news the moment it comes out.  You can, also, set it to send you a daily or weekly digest and you can just set your Alerts for News, Blogs, Realtime, Video or Discussions only.

Google Alerts also can be tracked in your Google Reader, making your news or information flow more directed and in one place.  Google Reader will update for you automatically.  I can now keep my Reader open and toggle back to it to view any new updates.  For more information on how Google Reader makes your news/info/rss/blogs much easier to collect and saves headaches, go to my Google Reader post.