Google Reader

I've been using Google Reader for several weeks now. There are about 37 or so blogs that I keep up with and I add more here and there too. So how does Google Reader help me do it?

Google Reader is a lot like Google Mail. It lists the blog subscription names on the left and shows you which ones have new posts. It will also tally the total number of new posts in all the blogs near the top ( so you can see how many you may be working through). When you click on the blog you want, it shows the posts on the right and can automatically track what you have read and not read.

There are a lot of other features to it that I have not explored yet, but that is the basics.

I have noticed in my settings, I can change a little about how my blog reacts to subscribers, and I think I can even prevent my blog from being subscribed to, thereby forcing people to come to the blog.

Which brings up another point. I know that a lot of bloggers track their statistics with Google Analytics or other software. They track referrers and word searches. I do not know yet how Google Reader skews those statistics (which may be why some blogs will not let you subscribe).