Re: Make Google Reader Your Web Brain in 3 Simple Steps

这么长一段，头晕

On 6/5/08, Qian <sinoee@...> wrote:
>  Sent to you by Qian via Google Reader: Make Google Reader Your Web
> Brain in 3 Simple Steps via Smithereens by Daniel Smith on 6/4/08
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> This makes my third post on this still-young blog about dealing with
> information overload on the web (and yes, I do realize the irony of
> that statement.) But in this day of countless blogs and news sites,
> combined with a daily barrage of email and countless social networks to
> keep up (not to mention micro-information overload from the likes of
> Twitter and Friendfeed), I think this is an issue many people struggle
> with. And hey, I just want to help.
>
> So this post is going to show you how to handle the constant barrage of
> web-prose with poise and grace by using Google Reader as your personal
> web brain for filtering what you should read and capturing what you may
> want to reference later on.
> There are certainly other ways of accomplishing this goal: Steve
> Pavlina at the popular blog Micro Persuasion prefers to use Gmail as
> his "nerve centre", for example, while Linden over at Linden's Pensieve
> prefers Diigo for capturing the best of the web, and many of
> Lifehacker's commenters recently weighed in with different options for
> bookmarking interesting content online as well.
> But Google Reader works really well for me, so while I encourage you to
> explore those other links, this post is will concentrate on my own
> 3-step method of finding and filtering the steady flow of information
> using this powerful service.
> Step 1- Get Google Reader
> First thing's first, if you want to use Google Reader as your online
> brain, well, you need to go here and open an account if you don't
> already have one (dont worry, it's easy.)
> If you already have a Gmail account (or any other Google service), all
> you need to do is sign in. If you don't have Gmail, sign up for a
> Google Account and you'll be able to use Reader AND also get access to
> the best online email service as a bonus ("One million reasons why you
> should be using Gmail" is another post for another day, but I urge you
> to give it a try too if you haven't already.)
> I'm not one to reinvent the wheel, so I won't go into great detail
> about exactly how Reader works because Abraham over on Piper's blog
> gives a great step-by-step rundown of what the heck RSS is and how to
> use Google Reader, complete with screen-shots. [I came across his
> tutorial linked on SEO Diva's site, which is packed with helpful hints
> on running marketing your website. See my point in Step 2 about finding
> good content by reading good bloggers.]
> So now that you have set up your Reader and subscribed to a few
> interesting feeds to get yourself started (including mine, right?), you
> will now be faced with the dilemma of where to find more piping hot and
> fresh content that you actually want to read, so you can have it
> automatically pushed to your new "story inbox" all the time - no more
> slagging through website after website to find stuff worth reading.
> And that brings us to step 2.
> Step 2- Find Stuff to Read Worth Reading
> One of the main obstacles to overcome when trying to filter the web,
> especially if you are new to the blogosphere (and even if you're not),
> is figuring out where to find good, fresh content about topics that
> interest you.
> Well it just so happens that Google Reader can be a great help in this
> department as well, in a few different ways.
> The first thing you should do is check out it's baked-in
> recommendations tools.
> Leveraging Reader's Recommended Blogs and Pre-packaged Blog Bundles
> There is a link right in the Reader sidebar called "Discover." When you
> click on this option, you will be presented with two tabs, one called
> Recommendations and one called Browse, both of which can be helpful.
> Let's take a quick look at each of these.
> When you're first starting out, the Recommendations tab won't give you
> anything (yet), because Reader doesn't feel he really knows you well
> enough to be giving blog recommendations on the first date. He's a
> gentleman like that. So we'll come back to this one.
>
> Under Browse, on the other hand, you can really dig in right from the
> get-go and get started by adding some of Reader's so-called Bundles of
> feeds on topics you find interesting. So go ahead, flip over to Reader
> and add a few of these to get started- read through them, then come
> back and we'll continue. I'll wait right here and polish up the next
> Step a bit while you're gone...
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> Oh, you're back? Wow, I started to think you might never return. You
> must have found some really interesting stuff over there. See, what did
> I tell you?
> Well, now that you're back, you're probably wondering how else you can
> find quality content on the internet using Google Reader. For starters,
> in case it wasn't obvious from my statement a couple paragraphs ago,
> the Recommendations tab in Reader can be a great tool for finding new
> stuff, but only once you've trained it a bit to recognize your tastes.
> So make sure to check that out in a couple weeks. (You won't be
> disappointed, I promise.)

> Let Other Blog Readers Do The Dirty WorkAnother great feature of Reader

> is its Shared Items function, which I will explore at greater length in
> Step 3 below. But to explain it most basically, this function allows us
> readers to click a little Share button at the bottom of posts we like
> and store them all in a personalized feed of our favourite items.
> And thanks to this neat feature, a simple and great way to discover new
> content can be to skim the Favourites Feeds of people whose tastes you
> trust. If you trust mine, for example (a risky proposition indeed), you
> can follow my Google Reader Shared Items here, or take a look at the
> widget over there on the right-hand side of this blog (scroll down
> almost all the way) to see my ten most recently shared items.
> But what if you don't trust anybody's tastes, and instead just want to
> know what blog posts the general Reader community are finding popular
> as a whole? Well if you're really that cynical (I kid), there is good
> news: you can find that information all in one place, too.
> Playing off the notion that the stuff a lot of people favourite is
> probably pretty good, a website called RSSMeme has created quite a
> resource, a resource that combines all the most popular items on all
> Shared Items feeds for all users of Reader, in order to cull out the
> most popular ones for your reading pleasure. So if you're looking for
> solid material, this is a great site that leverages Google Reader's
> built-in functions to create a great content discovery tool - make sure
> to check it out.
> Let Your Blogging Circle Grow Naturally Outwards Finally, Google Reader
> can help you find interesting content in a more roundabout way: by
> encouraging you to read blogs in the first place. Because the best
> advice I can possibly give for finding quality blogs, based on my own
> experience, is to find a couple bloggers you like to read (one down,
> one to go...), and grow your circle outward from there. The best
> bloggers believe that the web is meant for collaboration and they will
> gladly link to other posts they find interesting on a regular basis
> (See Seth Godin's great post about this here.)
> That means that by following a few good bloggers, your network of good
> info sources should grow exponentially in no time just by checking out
> the links they provide for you on a regular basis. I know my
> own "content network" has grown immensely in this way.
> So now that your Reader is chock full of interesting writing that you
> just can't wait to bite into every day, how are you supposed to
> actually remember or act on any of the articles you like, what with so
> much content to consume. You can't very well memorize the URL of every
> cool blog post and web site you come across, right?
> Well maybe you can't, but the good news is: Reader can.
> Step 3 - Using Reader to Capture and Remember the Posts and Sites You
> Really Like
> With that useful little Share button I mentioned earlier (pictured in
> the screenshot at left), you can file away any blog post from a feed
> that you subscribe to right in Reader with a simple click. It doesn't
> get any easier than that - read it, like it, share it.
>
> And with that one action, you've captured the post in your very own
> Shared feed that is easily Searchable from within Reader. You can keep
> this feed private, or choose to publish it publicly like I do, so
> others can see what you've shared, too.
> But what about stuff you choose to read on the actual web sites (not
> within Reader)? Maybe you've subscribed to a feed that only broadcasts
> partial posts and forces you to click through to read the full thing.
> Or maybe you've stumbled across a cool video on Youtube, or some other
> piece of content outside of Reader. How can you capture and file that
> information as well without having to have two separate online "filing
> cabinets"? I'm glad you asked, let me tell you how you can now combine
> the two.
> Google Reader Share It Now As The Internet Bookmark of the Future (No,
> For Real This Time)Most web users are familiar with the term Internet
> Bookmarks and I'm sure you are, too. When you find a site you like and
> want to return to later, just click 'Add Bookmark' and voila, it's
> saved in that handy drop-down menu in your browser. Nice and easy,
> right?
> Well, the only problem with this traditional method of remembering
> sites you enjoy is that your bookmarks folder is like the electronic
> equivalent of a pack-rat's attic: the more stuff you shove into it, the
> harder it is to find anything useful.
> Because of that issue, when the whole Web 2.0 craze began, one of the
> first types of social services to arise was that of "social
> bookmarking", formed around the idea that bookmarks are much more
> useful if they are saved online where you can find them from any
> computer at any time with a simple search, and share them with other
> users at the same time.
> One of the pioneers in this space was a company called del.icio.us
> (which you can now reach at the less cryptic delicious.com address
> too), a no-frills service (now owned by Yahoo) that promised to
> revolutionize bookmarking by making it extremely simple and useful.
> You see, to use delicious, all you have to do is a) learn what a
> bookmarklet is, b) install it in your browser (well, actually it works
> better in the Firefox browser, so make that c) download Firefox first,
> and then install the bookmarklet, then d) go to your favourite site and
> e) click the bookmarklet.) Next, when a window pops up just f) enter a
> title, g) a description, and h) some tags, and then i) click save and
> j) voila, your site has been filed away and will be easily retrieved
> with k) a simple search, which you can either do from the Delicious
> homepage, if you happen to be there, or from another Firefox browser
> extension... which you'll have to l) install first. It's all very
> simple!
> If you're thinking 'That is the most complicated paragraph I have ever
> read in my life!', you are not alone.
> Personally, I did like the idea of having my favourite sites available
> on the web from any location, and easily sharable, so I did give
> delicious a spin awhile ago, but I just found the bookmarking process
> itself so cumbersome (see above) that I dreaded using it (which kind of
> defeats the purpose.)
> Many other services have sprung up that try to improve on the Delicious
> idea (like Linden's darling Diigo, for example, which I found useful
> and much better than delicious, but better suited for more in-depth
> annotation and research), and I might have tried a few other
> alternatives (there are way too many) to see how they compared as well,
> except that my perfect online bookmarking service snuck up and bit me
> from somewhere I didn't expect it to - from right within my beloved
> Google Reader!
> How Google Reader Became My Ultimate Web Brain
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> As I've explained, Google Reader has, for quite some time, included
> that button on all their posts that allowed users to add the post to a
> special feed called My Shared Items. Since I do almost all of my web
> reading via RSS now, Reader is a permanent fixture on tab two of my
> browser and so this simple function was almost acting as a
> pseudo-bookmarking service for me for quite awhile.
> But when I wanted to save a page on a blog I didn't subscribe to, or
> that didn't have a feed, or if I wanted to save something like a
> Youtube video, for the longest time there was no way to bookmark those
> types of content using Google Reader, so I had actually reverted to
> using plain old Firefox bookmarks again for those types of content.
> That all changed on May 6 of this year, when Google announced Shared
> Items With Notes and provided a way to add items to your feed outside
> of Reader.
> While this new feature did involve installing a Bookmarklet (which I
> realize I just poked fun at mere paragraphs ago), it is as simple as
> opening your Shared Feed in Reader and dragging a button from the
> window up onto your Bookmark bar. Presto.
> And unlike Delicious, adding new items with this plugin is not a pain -
> you simply highlight a portion of the page you want to clip (if any),
> click the Bookmarklet and up pops a slick box that asks if you want to
> add a note. If you do, add one. If you don't, click save. Done - you've
> added the page to the same feed that tracks all your favourite posts in
> Reader!
> Even better, it is now fully searchable within the Reader interface,
> like having your own efficient, personal Google Search Engine just for
> your bookmarks.

> In SumI have been using this system for about a month now and it has

> worked incredibly well for me. I am always finding new great content,
> reading it with ease and bookmarking the gems. I haven't once gotten
> lazy and just bookmarked something in Firefox like I used to when
> delicious was my socialmarking service du jour (unless you count the
> bookmarking I had to do in order to aggregate all the entries to
> Copyblogger's Twitlist contest.)
> And more importantly, on several occasions, when trying to pull up a
> page I wanted to re-read or link to on this blog, I just switched over
> to Google Reader quickly, punched in a search and bam: I had the page
> in front of me in seconds.
> So if you have a photographic memory and can record every useful site
> or article you read in your own superhuman memory bank for future
> reference, then this guide probably didn't help you much.
> But if, like the rest of us, you could use a little supplementary web
> brain power, why don't you give this system a try and let us know how
> you make out in the comments. Think you've got a better process for
> finding, reading and bookmarking content? Then please enlighten us
> about that in the comments, too.
>
> By the way, if you found this post useful, it would be great if you
> would give it a Digg by clicking the button below - this will help
> others on the 'net to find my article and when they, in turn, also find
> it useful, they'll Digg it again, and so on and so forth, the circle of
> life continues. Thanks.
>
> ---
> I want to apologize for my absence from the blog for the past two days
> - certain personal circumstances have prevented me from spending any
> amount of time here, and any time I did spend was on finishing this
> post. However, the rhythm of posts should be regular again going
> forward. Thanks for sticking it out.
> Also, a big welcome to all the new readers who've come here from links
> across the web over the past week. I hope to make you laugh, cry, and
> feel various other emotions on an almost-daily basis.
> By the way, as promised, a new contest will be launched here tonight at
> 7pm EST, based in part on the Copyblogger TwitLit competition that I
> have blogged about here recently.
> What will the competition be about? Well aside from the obvious fact
> that it will involve Twitter, I will give you another small hint -
> consider what day it is today... Hope to see you back here tonight!
> [Update: The contest is now live here.]
>
> Things you can do from here:
> - Subscribe to Smithereens using Google Reader
> - Get started using Google Reader to easily keep up with all your
> favorite sites
>
> >
>


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不要对自己说不行，其实我可以～～