The WordPress.com Reader: Follow Your Feeds, Discover Great Reads

As you may have heard, Google Reader is shutting down on July 1. As readers ourselves, we understand the importance of a go-to space on the internet for your daily feeds and regular reads — and a place to discover new finds. If you’re looking for a new reader (or are not using it already), we hope you’ll take the WordPress.com Reader for a spin. Check out what you can do:

The WordPress.com Reader can import and export OPML, so you can transfer subscriptions over from another feed reader. Google Reader users can import their subscriptions directly from Google Reader into the WordPress.com Reader. Visit the import page to get started:

Google Reader users will be asked to select the appropriate Google account (or sign in with a different email address) and grant WordPress.com to access it. For those importing from another feed reader, click on Choose File and then select the OPML file.

In the Reader, you can keep up with your favorite blogs in our community, the editors’ picks on Freshly Pressed, and Recommended Blogs — but you can also follow non-WordPress.com sites. In the box on the top-right of the Reader, click on the Edit link next to Blogs I Follow:

On the Edit Blogs I Follow page, enter the URLs of sites you’d like to follow, one by one, in the field at the top:

And voilà‎! You can follow your favorite sites, on WordPress.com and elsewhere, all in one place.

In addition to keeping up with your regular reads, you can follow specific topics to see what WordPress.com users are writing on the discussions du jour. The cloud of popular topics offers a bird’s-eye view of what our community is publishing — what’s hot and happening now:

We encourage you to go further — to be your own curator — by following custom topics and reading the stuff you’re curious and passionate about. In your Topics box, located on the right, you can follow Google Glass to compare commentaries on the controversial eyewear. Or nostalgia for evocative personal essays and memoir. Or behavioral economics for the latest takes on psychology and choice.

To add custom topics:

In the Topics box, enter a topic in the field, then click on the “+” symbol:

Or, explore the Topics page, search for a topic (such as Cognitive Science), and click Follow at the top.

We hope you dive in to the WordPress.com Reader and use it to follow your favorite stuff across the internet!