I’ve Dumped Bloglines for Google Reader

October 21, 2008 in Technology with 12 Comments

In case you haven’t heard the scuttlebutt, Bloglines was broken for about a week. Until yesterday afternoon, a number of my feeds weren’t updating properly, and I was missing a lot of good content. This was a bummer for me because I’ve been a big fan of Bloglines. In fact I’ve promoted Bloglines here on several occasions.

Out of frustration, though, I decided to give Google Reader another shot. It had been a number of months since I last compared it to Bloglines. After using it for the last couple of days, I have to admit. I’m hooked. I love it!

My favorite features include:

  • shared items
  • monitoring my viewing trends
  • recommendations of blogs that are similar to my current subscriptions
  • the standard Google ease of navigation

You need to know. I’m a huge Google proponent. So, honestly, I really loved Bloglines enough to avoid using Google Reader for so long. The truth is, though, that I’m now convinced that Google Reader is the better option. With that in mind, I’m announcing my divorce from Bloglines. As of today, I’m married to a new feed reader.

For those of you who aren’t using a feed reader yet (including several hundred of you who get my blog updates through email), here’s a short post to explain how that might help you save some time.

Happy blog reading!

12 Responses to “I’ve Dumped Bloglines for Google Reader”

  1. Alastair October 21, 2008 at 9:35 pm #

    Tony has seen the light!

  2. Joshua Blankenship October 21, 2008 at 9:39 pm #

    Now, if only Google Reader was half as good as the NetNewsWire/NewsGator combo. I really wanted to like Google Reader, but it just isn’t quite there yet and, as usual with Google, the UI isn’t the best it could be.

  3. Terrace Crawford October 21, 2008 at 9:53 pm #

    I use Google reader too Tony. Just out of curiousity, who exactly do you read?

  4. Keith Tackel October 21, 2008 at 10:12 pm #

    Congrats on your marriage! I have been hooked on Google Reader for a while now. It has been easy to use, met my needs and is free!

  5. Sean Pritzkau October 21, 2008 at 10:18 pm #

    I’ve been waiting for this day ever since I started reading your blog!

  6. John Finkelde October 22, 2008 at 3:44 am #

    Just switched to Newsgator FeedDemon – like its simple uncluttered layout

  7. Chris Walker October 22, 2008 at 10:24 am #

    I made the switch back from Bloglines to Google Reader earlier this week too. After experiencing the same problem with updates and not able to find any reasoning for it on the Internet including the Bloglines Blog, I switched back. I will miss the 3 pane view and the option for full site viewing for those blogs that only publish partial RSS. But I like getting my information quickly and efficiently.

  8. scott engbrecht October 22, 2008 at 11:24 am #

    I use Google for mostly everything, but am still holding on to newsgator. Just can’t let her go.

  9. Brian Becker October 22, 2008 at 12:59 pm #

    good stuff! I never understood how that worked…I just subscribe to feeds and scroll down my list of blogs to get the latest update, but I’ve never used a reader before…I’ll have to check this out!

  10. David Russell October 22, 2008 at 1:59 pm #

    Stylish and “OS X Style Google Reader” will bring a little hotness to that UI. :) After Newshutch died last year, I adopted Google Reader. One other excellent feature that I haven’t seen mentioned here is the mobile interface. I love it.

  11. troy marshall October 23, 2008 at 8:48 am #

    I don’t know Tony. Divorcing without even going to counseling and no known infidelity? Sounds all so sudden:)

  12. Jason Christ October 23, 2008 at 10:28 pm #

    Welcome to Google Reader! David mentioned a Stylish Script for Reader. I’d also recommend the Better GReader extension for Firefox. It adds some of the best Greasemonkey Scripts to Reader.