This morning, the Nester posed the question How Do You Read Blogs? I found it interesting that by the time I got around to commenting (#30-something), no one had mentioned my favorite blog-reading tool. So I did my best to explain it in my comment. Then I realized I should also share this niftiness with you!

I love Google Reader and have used it for a long while now. It saves me much time by letting me know when one of the blogs that I read has a new post, so I don’t have to go clicking through bookmarks to check blogs that may or may not have updates. Plus, if one of my bloggy friends disappears for a few months, I automatically know when they come back!

My one frustration with it was that if I wanted to see the actual blog, or if someone didn’t have their whole post go to the feed, I would have to open the link in a new tab.

But google has added a new wonderful feature that solves this frustration! Shawna told me about it and I’ll try to explain … the NEXT button!

The “Next” button is a link that you can drag to your favorites bar. When you click it, whatever tab you are in will automatically go to the page of the next post in your reader. It’s the handiness of google reader without having to miss out on the beauty of the actual blogs – nifty!

Here’s how you can get it: Go to your Google Reader and hit the Settings link. There will be several tabs across the top… go to Goodies. Under “Put Reader in a Bookmark,” there is a link that you can simply drag to your favorites bar to add the Next button.

One other note: those of you who have been with me for a while know that screen “real estate” is valuable to this claustrophic woman. I hadn’t had a favorites bar at the top of my browser since I found out I could make it go away! But I put it back to give the Next button a trial run, and yes, this tool is handy enough that I’m willing to give up that precious piece of screen real estate to have it.

Give the Next button a try and let me know if you like it!