I was surprised how many of my friends don’t use an RSS reader. If you’re reading this, maybe you’re one of those friends and you don’t have a clue what RSS even stands for. (RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication.”)

The RSS feed was created to provide a way for website publishers to easily share information about the content on their website that is updated frequently. Many websites and browsers indicate an RSS feed with an orange icon (pictured on the right).

An RSS reader is a program that organizes a bunch of RSS feeds from different websites and checks them for new information, creating a single, convenient place where you can look for new posts from your favorite websites.

So What’s Google Reader?

I’m glad you asked. As you might have guessed already, Google Reader is an RSS reader that Google makes. It is a free, web-based program that you can use from anywhere you have an internet connection (and a computer). Even better, if you already have a Google account, you can hop right into Reader! If not though, you’ll need to create a Google account quickly.

First step: Follow this link to get to the Google Reader page. If you don’t already have a Google account, click the big, blue “Create An Account” button. The worst part of this process is trying to read the CAPTCHA image they use to make sure you’re human.

I’m not totally sure what sort of welcome screen Google will give you since it has been forever since I signed up, but I’m sure you’ll manage your way to a screen that looks something like this:

Screenshot of my Google Reader homepage.

Whoa. So, where to start?

First, you’ll need to find some RSS feeds to follow. I’ll show you two ways: looking on a website for a link to their RSS feed, and using Google Reader’s “Add A Subscription” feature.

One of my favorites Michael Hyatt’s blog. He’s the CEO of Thomas Nelson and has great posts on the topic of leadership. We’ll practice finding an RSS feed on a website with his site. His website has a gray and white version of the RSS icon located on the right. Click on the icon, then on the next page, click the blue link that says “My Regular Posts.”

Screenshot of the Feedburner page. You want to select where the blue arrow is pointing.

That takes you to a fun page on Feedburner (see the screenshot above). That’s a topic for another day, but for now, click the link on the right that says “Google.” A blue arrow is pointing to it in the screenshot. It should pull the feed up in Google Reader and have a yellow message that says “You are not subscribed to this feed yet.” Click the “Subscribe” button at the bottom of the yellow message.

You’ve now subscribed to your first feed. Now let’s find the feed for Lifehacker, another one of my favorite sites, using Google’s “Add Subscription” button. This is located in the upper left of the Reader homepage. Click that, type “Lifehacker” in the search box, and click “Add.” It will bring up a list of possible matches for the site. The first one is what you want. Click the big “Subscribe” button under the description of the feed.

There you go, feed number two!

Three more of my personal favorites:

• “Seth’s Blog” — The blog of author and marketing guru, Seth Godin.
• “John Maxwell on Leadership” — The blog of leadership expert, John C. Maxwell.
• Gizmodo — a fantastic blog about cool tech stuff.

Go ahead and search for the sites that you frequently visit and start subscribing! Don’t forget to subscribe to mine too! You’ll need to search for this site address, not just my name: “http://adam.reineke.me”

In an upcoming post, I’ll explain how to organize your feeds and take advantage of the other cool features that are offered in Google Reader.