Do you see that blue button on the right side of this blog that says “something-number-of readers via feedburner?” That is the link to the feed of my blog’s content. When you use a reader, and you are subscribed to my blog’s feed, you view the content of my blog from another program or site. Take note, I said program – becuase there are readers that you can download and site – because there are readers that are online. Just like there’s Outlook (program) and Gmail (online) for emails.
That’s stupid
That’s what I thought of also when I first heard about readers. You see, if you read only a couple of blogs, there’s really no need for a reader. But, let’s say you read about 10 blogs in one day. You go to blog # 1, read the new posts for that day, then you go to blog # 2 and find out that blogger # 2 did not update. Then you go to blog # 3 who updated, and blog # 4 who did not update, and so on. You just wasted half of your time visiting blogs that had the same content since you last visited the sites.
Now, imagine a site (or a program) which can sort out all of that for you. You open the reader, like you would open a mail program, then see only the newest posts or articles which you have not read; just like there are a number of unread emails when you check mail.
Try it out
I suggest Google reader. Like Gmail, it’s simple and dead-on only-the-stuff-you-need and then some in it’s feature list. When you click on that blue button on the right, it well lead you to a page that will let you choose which online reader to use.  By the way, if you already have Gmail, then you already have an account with Google reader. You just have to sort of activate it. Try it out.