Bloglines Beta vs Google Reader

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As a guy who who helps businesses with blogging and the whole social media scene I’m often asked to make recomendations on feed readers.

For many folks a web based reader makes sense. The ability to keep up with feeds from any computer with an internet connection, the ease of start up (and the fact that they’re free) mean that I usually recommend folks new to RSS start with one of these.

A little over a year ago I wrote a comparison post on some free web based feed readers. In it I talked about 4 different feed readers, Google Reader, Bloglines, Netvibes and NewsGator. I went poking around Netvibes and NewsGator today for the first time in a long time. On that quick overview today I didn’t see any huge changes from when I wrote that post in 2006.

Bloglines Beta

Bloglines has come out with a whole new platform since that post that they are calling Bloglines Beta. This morning Whitney Hess posted an excellent head to head comparison of the new Bloglines Beta vs Google Reader. I highly recommend Whitney’s post for anyone interested in the differences between the two. She spent a lot of time going through both readers from a usability viewpoint and came up with the one she thinks is best.

I’ve got her post bookmarked in Del.icio.us and will be passing on that link whenever someone asks me for a recommendation.

And if you’re wondering whether her evaluation of the two stands up, check out Matthew Oliphant’s response post comparing the two. He comes up with the same winner.

Google Reader

More than a year ago Google Reader was my workhorse feed reader. I’m still using it.

I was tempted to head back to Bloglines after they came out with Bloglines Beta. But just in the nick of time Google added
the ability to search your feeds and kept me aboard. I still don’t understand why a search engine company took so long to add search to their feed reader. I mean we’re talking Google here. Sheesh!

Anyway, since adding the search feature Google’s also added lots of capability to share both specific feed items and even whole folders of feeds with others. There’s some interesting things more advanced users can do with these sharing functions.

By making their tags public Google Reader users now have the ability to publish new “feeds of feeds” which can be repurposed into a blogroll or list of headlines from a group of blogs for your site.

Google Reader is still my feed reader of choice. But the good news is that all the competition is forcing all of the readers to keep raising the bar on their products.

All of us users end up winning as a result.

Google Reader Now Available OFF-Line

Good News!

My favorite RSS feed reader has just taken a huge step forward.

I prefer a web based feed reader because I split my time between multiple machines. Google Reader has been my feed aggregator of choice after testing several of the web based readers.

The one thing I found a little frustrating is having to be connected to the web all the time I’m looking through my feeds. But now that frustration is a thing of the past.

Google Reader now works off-line as well.

Totally cool!

Now I can feed to my hart’s content on line or off! I’m diggin’ it!

What is Google Really Up To?

There is a brilliant new guest post up over at ProBlogger.net by Alister Cameron titled How Google Blogsearch ranks your Posts… In their own words!

It’s a long post, and very technical. Alister analyzes some of the wording found in Google’s patent application a couple years back for their Blog Search and he brings up several interesting questions.

Here’s one of the things he brings forward that might be a little disturbing for some folks.

Apparently, according to the patent application, Google goes through folk’s GMail and Google Talk accounts looking for links and somehow incorporates that data into their search algorithms. They also apparently use data gathered from their Google Reader users accounts with regards to feed viewing and clicking habits.

If you are a user of one of these services (I use use all three), how do you feel about Google looking over your shoulder to glean information about your habits?

Do you think Google culling your email or IM conversations for links is an invasion of your privacy?

If you don’t use these services, does knowing Google is watching what you do discourage you from ever using them?

Food for thought.

Free Web Based Feed Reader Comparison

So you are convinced about the value of RSS and Feeds but you aren’t sure which feed reader might be a good fit for you.

Well here is a little comparison of four of the free web based feed readers out there.

I split my computer time between a couple different machines in a couple different places. Some of those machines aren’t mine so I can’t be installing software on them. And I want to be able to access my feeds from anywhere.

So a web based reader is a good option for me. If I was doing a lot of business traveling, a computer based reader might be a better option because I would want to download my feeds where I could connect to the web and then read them at my leisure off line.

You all know I’m a fan of spending as little money as necessary to get the things I want, so in my book free web services are a great option.

Here are four services to take a look at.
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