Couple of quick questions about Google Reader

I would really really really appreciate a little help in figuring out a couple questions I have about Google Reader's basic functionality, for which I've search endlessly for answers to and have even posted this identical question on other forums, but have still not been able to come up with any answers...and I am a total RSS newbie, so please forgive what many of you will likely consider brainless questions

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-- What is the difference between marking something as shared by clicking the 'Share' button at the bottom of a post, versus marking something as 'Starred' and then making sure that the 'Starred' tag is marked as 'Public' from within Reader's preferences? Why would someone choose to Star something vs. Sharing something?

-- How long do posts that I've starred, or marked as shared, remain in google reader? Can it be considered 'permanently' archived? Or will these items one day disappear from the list of shared/starred items after an certain amount of time has past?

-- I think I might be missing something when it comes to tagging a blog post...Is it correct to assume that if I want to tag a particular post with, hypothetically, a tag named "Digital Audio", then I would actually have to click on the "Add Tag" or "Edit Tag" button at the bottom of a post, then manually type in "Digital Audio" every single time I want to tag a particular post with that tag? If so, is there really not a way that I can simply drag a post onto a tag that appears in my subscription list? If not, doesn't this seem a bit tedious? What if there are 10 posts in a single feed, one appearing just a couple of posts right after the next, that I want tagged with a particular tag...I have to manually type in the tag title for each and every one of them?

-- How far back (in the past) can you browse content for for in a a particular feed (for a site like Engadget for example...one that's been around and posts many entries daily)? Does this depend on the feed's setting somehow, and how long the publisher has chosen to keep items in their feed? Or is there even a limit (since the feeds inception)?

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Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated... Thanks!

m021478 wrote:

I would really really really appreciate a little help in figuring out a couple questions I have about Google Reader's basic functionality, for which I've search endlessly for answers to and have even posted this identical question on other forums, but have still not been able to come up with any answers...and I am a total RSS newbie, so please forgive what many of you will likely consider brainless questions --------------------------------------------- -- What is the difference between marking something as shared by clicking the 'Share' button at the bottom of a post, versus marking something as 'Starred' and then making sure that the 'Starred' tag is marked as 'Public' from within Reader's preferences? Why would someone choose to Star something vs. Sharing something? -- How long do posts that I've starred, or marked as shared, remain in google reader? Can it be considered 'permanently' archived? Or will these items one day disappear from the list of shared/starred items after an certain amount of time has past? -- I think I might be missing something when it comes to tagging a blog post...Is it correct to assume that if I want to tag a particular post with, hypothetically, a tag named "Digital Audio", then I would actually have to click on the "Add Tag" or "Edit Tag" button at the bottom of a post, then manually type in "Digital Audio" every single time I want to tag a particular post with that tag? If so, is there really not a way that I can simply drag a post onto a tag that appears in my subscription list? If not, doesn't this seem a bit tedious? What if there are 10 posts in a single feed, one appearing just a couple of posts right after the next, that I want tagged with a particular tag...I have to manually type in the tag title for each and every one of them? -- How far back (in the past) can you browse content for for in a a particular feed (for a site like Engadget for example...one that's been around and posts many entries daily)? Does this depend on the feed's setting somehow, and how long the publisher has chosen to keep items in their feed? Or is there even a limit (since the feeds inception)? --------------------------------------------- Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated... Thanks!

Hello and welcome to Lockergnome!

I may not be able to answer every question, but as a longtime RSS/Atom fan and as of a few years ago a sole Google Reader user, I might be able to help here a little bit.

1) Starred is a private way of keeping tabs on posts that you like. Shared is a way to share posts to the public through a widget, shared link, or Gmail contact list.
2) As far as I can tell, Shared and Starred items are permanent.
3) Tagging might be a little trickier to explain well, but if you tag the actual feed on the left pane then all posts that come in from that feed will automatically get tagged with what you want. After that you can always add additional tags manually. I subscribe to a few hundred feeds though and I have them all tagged automatically so that I don't need to go through each post and figure out where it belongs.
4) The limit to imported posts from RSS/Atom is initially based upon the settings of the feed publisher. If they want a new subscriber to get 10 posts, that's all you get. After that though they will stay in your reader until you open them up or mark them as read.

Hope that helps a little.