Incredibly (given how much I time I devote to talking about it), I am a recent convert to the whole Google Reader thing (three weeks and counting), and would possibly have never stumbled upon the technology if a fellow blogger had not made a seemingly innocent remark (thank you, Joshua Mostafa). The Google Reader fetish means my productivity has taken a nosedive. As can yours.

The Google Reader (aka feed aggregator, RSS reader), or any RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeder acts as a central site to bring in all the internet content you as an individual are interested in – user-determined content, or your own newspaper, if you will.

It’s a web-based reader application that helps you keep track all of the content continually being updated on the Internet, whether the content is taken from blogs, newspapers, journals, podcasts or other audio and video content. The Reader presents all of this information in a single location in a standardised format. This means the onus is no longer on us, as readers, to regularly visit all of these sites, which can be a long-drawn-out process.

Or in Plain English (that possibly makes this post redundant):

Read the rest of the post over at Meanland.