If you’ve ever followed a frequently updating site in Reader, you may have noticed a problem. When one of your followed sites goes on a posting streak, it can easily overwhelm your stream, causing you to miss posts from less frequent sites.
Today we launched a new feature to alleviate this problem: Combined Cards. Now, when a site you follow gets prolific, we’ll combine those posts into a single card — provided the posts are all from the same day and uninterrupted by posts from other sites.
Here’s a recent example from Time Magazine. (Did you know you can follow Time in Reader? You can!) Before on the left, after on the right.
For Writers: If you post once a day, your posts will never be combined in Reader. If you post more than once a day, it’s possible your posts will be combined for some readers and not others — it depends on how many other sites they follow and when they post. Posts will only be combined if they’re uninterrupted by other posts.
For Readers: Your Followed Sites stream still shows all the posts from the sites you follow, in exactly the same order. The only thing that’s changed is that if a site posts a string of new posts, we’ll combine them into one card so they take up less vertical space.
We hope this change makes Reader more pleasant to use, and helps you feel comfortable following more frequently updating sites. If you’d like some suggestions, here are some great high frequency sites we recommend: Fortune, People, Laughing Squid, Uproxx, The Sports Daily, Heavy, TechCrunch, Black America Web, and BGR. Remember to click the “Follow” link at the top of the page to add it to your Reader.
WordPress.com members can visit Reader in the usual spot. Not a member yet? Join us. And thanks, as always, for being part of the WordPress.com community.
