Google Reader or Google Friend Connect?

See that widget at the bottom of my left hand side pane? It's a mosaic block of people who follow my blog using Google Friend Connect. You'll see them on a lot of the blogs you follow. I like being able to put up a widget that acknowledges my readers.

For my own blog reading, I use Google Reader. With Google Reader, I can separate the blogs I read into categories, like "etsy", "business tips", or "inspiring artists." Google Reader even gives me several ways to share the blogs I read, right here on my blog. Again in the left hand sidebar, you can see a long rectangle showing ten recently updated blogs from my Inspiring Artists list. The widget automatically updates with the ten most recent blogs. I put in blogs that I personally enjoy and that I think my readers might enjoy. These people do often show and sell a creative product, but they don't limit their blog to sales. They blog about their own creativity, or about topics useful to other artists. I especially like that the list is always changing and that you can see the topic title, to determine whether you're interested in the topic or not.

If you use Google Reader and want to use a widget on your own blog, to share a category , starred entries, or shared entries...

• Go to your Google Reader main page.
• In the upper right hand corner, use the settings drop down menu to choose Reader Settings.
• Select the Folders and Tags tab.

• Look at your sharing options. You can decide which items you want to be public or private. I've chosen to make my Inspiring Artists category, Starred Items and Shared Items public. The rest are private.
• On your Public items, look to the right. You should have an option to add a clip to your site or add a blogroll to your site. Click on each. See what it looks like. Decide what options are best for your readers, and add it to your blog. I chose a clip for "Inspiring Artists" so that I could show the blog titles and choose the number of entries to display.

The problem with blog rolls.....I know as a blog reader that I rarely click on links from a super long blog roll. So I personally prefer a shorter list that includes the recent entry title. This helps me to make better decisions on what to browse.

As I said before, I do try to choose blogs with creative insight, information that goes beyond what items are for sale. My Inspiring Artist list is made up of predominantly visual artists in the craft realms, along with 2 creative cooks. Take a look at the titles and enjoy browsing. Please let me know if you think there are some other artistic, creative blogs that I would enjoy reading.