Google Reader vs. Bloglines Beta: Who knew there was any question?
While blogging for work, I was surprised to read an enthusiastic article by Clay Burell about the new Bloglines Beta that got me thinking seriously about switching to Bloglines from Google Reader. I know, it’s shocking - abandon my beloved Google reading home to the competition?
Well after some preliminary market research, there are a few reasons for my adulterous thoughts:
1. As mentioned in the article, Bloglines Beta does have a new option where you can read and write comments from within the RSS reader. An added convenience that Clay Burell responds to enthusiastically: “this one deserves trumpeting from the rooftops - because finally, RSS Readers are not conversation-stoppers. THANK YOU, BLOGLINES BETA.”
2. After playing around with Bloglines, I think I may prefer the darker blue, clean-lined style of the interface. I think because of the more rich colours (as opposed to the pastel of GReader), images and formatting look beautiful when reading, and it seems to beat Google with its more distracting elements in comparison. In some cases, art images seemed to fit better in the screen in Bloglines. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with the Google interface until I saw how Bloglines seemed to free up my vision so I could focus on reading. This is really just personal taste, however.
3. In Bloglines it is much easier to delete folders and individual feeds. This may seem like a small thing, but with all of the feeds that I have it helps that I can easily trash a feed that I’m not reading anymore. With GReader I always hate having to manually unsubscribe in its clunky way and then it heavily brings me back to the front page. After something is deleted in Bloglines it pulls up a screen telling you it has been deleted, and you can quickly and easily continue with your reading and sorting without being transported.
Of course there are advantages and disadvantages to both readers. Bloglines does not seem to have the option to view videos in the reader, which is essential. (Though this is only the Beta version and in the About Beta page Bloglines indicates that more features are to come). And the commenting feature is not that innovative since it only seems to work if you “Preview” the blog, meaning that it opens up heavily in a third frame. It would be much better if somehow it could integrate a slick commenting system independent of needing to see the actual blog. I hate heaviness in web design. This is probably not an achievable option though, given the anti-spam and contextual elements of commenting on blogs. At any rate, their means of enabling commenting is a big leap towards improving aggregator functionality.
Goole Reader also has many benefits such as integration with other Google apps, a nice Google Reader shared page, great search, and star system. But more things I like in the new Bloglines: instead of just starring items into one huge favourites pile, I can save entries into separate folders and write comments about each one that I save - allowing me to find favourites much more easily. You can also drag and drop your feeds for organization, as well as choose which feeds show up on the homepage. You can also rename the title of each feed easily. I haven’t been testing Bloglines for long though, so I may come up with a few things that are frustrating in terms of usability.
Moving from Google Reader to Bloglines is made simple by the easy export and import of OPML files. I have the complete replicate of the folder storage system and each blog in Bloglines. The only pitfall is that Bloglines starts you over by filling in 10 entries per blog, while in Google Reader I still have plenty of catching up to do on feeds.
Just when I think I’m wholly convinced, I’m notified that Google has just introduced a Recommendations system for feeds that gives me advice on other blogs to read based on other people out there with similar reading interests.
I wish RSS aggregators would stop toying with me! Smart play, Google, but not sure it’s enough to compete with the seemingly cleaner, slicker interface of Bloglines or the inline commenting. I am still testing both tools, so the winner of this feature game is yet to be announced! With all of the web reading I do, I need to make sure I’m using a tool that feels right.
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