How to Read a Blog

Okay, so once upon a time, I had a blogroll on the side of my blog (actually, I still have it… it just serves a different purpose now). I got kind of sick of clicking on each individual blog and reading new posts on each separate webpage.

Sure, Chrome makes pretty fast work of it, but still… I’m not THAT excited to go to everyone’s blog (except to comment – and I still try to comment on folk’s blogs! I’ve been slacking lately, sorries).

Well, then I discovered a RSS feed and what is known as a “RSS Feed Reader.” I happen to use Google reader just because I don’t like having to log in to a bunch of different accounts, so I tend to keep everything kind of centralized with Google. It’s just more convenient. Also, when I was “adding” the blogs I read, I could add most of them by clicking a button that said something to the effect of “add blogs I’m following.” Which was fantabulous, since I was following most of the public blogs on my “blogroll.”

So now my blogroll’s role (ha ha) is mainly to show my readers what other blogs I’m reading. If the blog has a button, I’ve listed the button. If not, it just gets a linky.

So there you have it. That, my friends, is how blog reading should be done. I especially like using the iPhone layout of Google reader. That is my favorite, because it’s super clean – you know, nothing extra, just the posts. You can even add feeds right there.

Now, go set yourself up with an RSS Feed Reader and start enjoying your friends’ blogs! (and all those other blogs you know you spend your time reading! ;) )

A Note: Amy (in the comments) reminded me that private blogs do not have an RSS feed. You can solve that problem by creating a "front page" for your blog - see mine here.

Basically here is how you create a "front page" for your private blog:

1.) Create a blog for your front page. If the name of your private blog is "http://myblog.blogspot.com" your frontpage could be named something like "http://myblogfrontpage.blogspot.com" but it doesn't really matter.

2.) Every time you post a new post on your private blog, make a post on your "front page" that links to the post on your private blog. For an example - say you wrote a post entitled "My Blog Post" on your private blog. On your public "front page" you could make a post entitled the same "My Blog Post" where the body of the post is "Here is a link to my most recent post _(insert link here) " (you can be more creative with your front page posts - you can see examples of mine here).

3.) It's most convenient if you use a blog writer (I use Windows Live Writer - my absolute favorite, and I've tried a few of them - the free ones, anyway) because, at least with Live Writer, you can post the same post to several different blogs, so I just post it to my private blog, then switch it over to my public blog and take out all the text and pictures (sometimes I leave the first line of the blog post, if it doesn't have anything too personal and if it describes the post adequately). You could probably set this up pretty easily using email, too (maybe I'll address that in another post someday).

So there you have it - how to make your own feed for a public blog. So if you have a friend who only has a private blog, tell them how to make a front page so you can get a feed!! I hope any of my readers is satisfied with me providing a public feed (I also upload my feed to Facebook, and you could probably upload it to twitter, too, if you're a twittterer)