You may have sensed a disturbance in the Force yesterday—as if millions of internet users suddenly cried out in terror. That disturbance was Google announcing the impending shutdown of Google Reader. While Google is no doubt correct that Reader’s usage has declined, enough people still rely on it for their blog and feed reading that chatter about this news is rivalling discussion of the new Pope in many online circles.
Plenty of people are sharing alternatives you can turn to when Google Reader shuts down this summer. My Bible Gateway colleague Chris points out Prismatic, Feed Wrangler, NewsBlur, and Feedler as just some of the many options worth exploring—and with months to go before Google Reader finally shuts down, you’ve got time to try out a few different alternatives.
With all the discussion of Google Reader, I thought it would be a good time to review some of the Bible Gateway content you can access through Reader or any RSS reader. (If you’re not familiar with RSS or feed readers, they can save you a lot of time, particularly if you have a big list of websites you like to check regularly. Here’s a brief explanation, and here’s a more detailed one.)
As you browse Bible Gateway, watch for this icon (or close variants of it), which indicates that content is available via RSS:
Clicking on that icon will take you to the RSS feed for the content in question. You can then copy that feed’s location into your preferred RSS reader.
The main RSS feeds published by Bible Gateway are:
1. The Verse of the Day. (Click here for the Verse of the Day RSS feed.) Our daily Bible verse. You can find it right next to the Verse of the Day on our homepage:
By default, the link above shows the daily verse in the NIV translation; to get the feed in a different Bible version, simply visit BibleGateway.com, choose a different Bible version from the drop-down menu, and click Search. The RSS feed is now updated to use your preferred Bible; just copy it into the RSS reader of your choice.
2. Bible reading plans. Our assorted Bible reading plans are all available via RSS; when you subscribe to a reading plan RSS feed, you’ll have each day’s reading delivered straight to your reader.
You can find the reading plan RSS feed by visiting the Reading Plans page, selecting your desired reading plan and Bible version from the dropdowns, and clicking Go. The RSS feed for your reading plan is located on the right side of the page:
3. The Bible Gateway blog. (Feed location: http://www.biblegateway.com/blog/?feed=rss2) If you don’t already subscribe to the Bible Gateway blog’s RSS feed, this is an easy way to have each post delivered directly to you as soon as it’s posted.