Yes, it’s time for Google Reader. Fifth Meditation on Media

Google Reader is like having a news network that works just for you. If you find a regularly released stream of information on the web that also has an RSS feed, then you can pop that sucker right into Google Reader and add it to other streams. Now you never have to go searching for your regular columns, they all come to you!

If you love to read blogs, then Google Reader is your best friend. Not only will it collect all the new posts from the blogs you visit, but it will also organize them just about any way you want. This is one of the ways that you can get the information on the web to work for you!

When paired up with Google Alerts, you can expand your Reader into new blogs that have content that you are interested in. By setting up a Google Alert search term, you are essentially telling Google to e-mail you about all the new stuff related to that search each morning. If something new does come up, you will be notified. IF the Alert was not there, you may never have found that information. It would have been lost to the great web void. But, now that the new information is coming to you each morning you are able to subscribe to it and follow it in Google Reader. Great!

There is no way you can sift through the entire internet, so let Google do it for you. In case I have lost you, here is an informative video on what the hell RSS feeds are and what they mean for you:



Okay, so now you should be setting up your own Google Reader if you don’t have one already.

As with the other mediums I have covered previously, let’s take a look at how Google Reader and Google Alerts affect us as individuals and a society.

Triune Brain:
Bringing blogs and news together to one location is something your neo-cortex will thank you for. Or maybe it will be informational overload. Whichever it is, your neo-cortex is the part of your brain that is most active while you are using Google Reader. The Limbic and reptilian brain can also enjoy what Google reader can do for them, but that is more dependent on the video and image content of the blogs you have collected.

Eight Shifts:
Google reader and Google Alerts is something of a technological shift. Technology in encoding has allowed RSS feeds to exist and easily transport data onto any other medium. Google Reader has taken that format and given you a solid way to collect it into one stream of information. The main advantage of this is a huge savings in time.

The Google Reader site is an example of a personal shift. You log in and the site is built just for you with the information you want on it. You are the editor and chief of your own newspaper in Google Reader.

The biggest shift for Google Reader is the aesthetic shift. Information from other places is coming together to organize itself for you. Google Reader does not create any information; it just reorganizes it so you can sift through it better.

Seven Principles:
Value Messages – I think that Google is communicating a value message to us with many of its helpful tools like Google Reader. We don’t need to be crushed under the weight of information on the web anymore. We now have to tools to whip the web into submission so that we can cut out the clutter and pull on the strands of information that we are truly interested in. Google has given us the tools to make the information work for us.

Individual Meaning – Having a personalized experience with Google Reader means that each person will take something different from it. I am not an avid blog reader, so Google Reader was never something I thought I really needed, but I do use it for getting news. Having the tools to organize my information threads helps me compare articles on the same events, something that I find interesting. Others can use Google Reader in many different ways and each can find their own value in it.

Persuasive Techniques:

Simple Solutions – The text blurb you get when you search for Google Reader is: “Read them in one place with Google Reader, where keeping up with your favorite websites is as easy as checking your email.” Google is providing a simple solution to your routine information gathering. They have created a tool that saves you time and effort.

Symbolism – The RSS feed system as a whole employs an easy to recognize system of symbols, the orange squares with the three arcs inside it. Whenever you see this symbol you know that you can subscribe to the site.

If you have not tried Google Reader, or any other RSS feed reader, you need to. And if you like how it works then you should take the next step and set yourself some Google Alerts. Don’t waist your own time searching the web, make Google do it for you.