Google Reader

I don't think google reader gets enough credit for some of the little additions that it puts into the software. I use Google reader exclusively as my RSS aggregation utility of choice. Not only because it's simple to use, but mostly because then I do not have to worry about syncing between multiple clients, and thus re-reading what I've already read through once.

But the thing that most don't realize is that it can give statistics on all sorts of things. Anything from which feeds you do not read, to which ones you read the most. To even how many other subscribers are subscribing the same feeds you are reading. For instance, see the image below.

[caption id="attachment_1015" align="alignnone" caption="Most Obscure in my RSS Feeds"][/caption]

The ability to see how many others are subscribed to the same feeds is quite unique. Granted, don't take the numbers as the total number of subscribers, it's just the same number of subscribers to that exact feed. Sadly, I'm the only subscriber to my own feed :( Oh well, not the end of the world. I guess I should post more often, I might get more readers.

The other cool thing within Google Reader is the overall Trend Data. You can see how much information you've received, read, shared, and starred over the last 30 days. Too bad they don't keep the historical data as well. But that's a whole lot of data to really keep, so it's understandable as to why they cannot keep this information. See the image below for my stats from 04/07/09 to 05/07/09.

[caption id="attachment_1016" align="alignnone" caption="30 Day Google Trends Data"][/caption]

I suggest people use google reader for their RSS reader, because you don't have to sync, it works on mobile phones as well as on desktop clients, and you can just browse and find what type of content you wish to read. Give it a try.