Finally, a new Bloglines

I can't begin to describe the importance of RSS feeds and blogs. I spend at least half an hour every day reading RSS feeds, usually more. It's much like reading the newspaper or watching the news. In fact, I find that a growing number of RSS pieces are finding their way to the printed paper, usually a day or so later.

I have almost 150 feeds in my growing list of RSS subscriptions. If I would read them all every day, that will probably take most of the day... that's a huge issue, which is yet to be solved. But this is a topic for a different post. Today I'm focusing on the RSS reader (or aggregator).

I'm an addicted Bloglines user for more than 2 years now. I ALWAYS have a tab with Bloglines open. I believe I've tried most (if not all) the online RSS reading solutions out there and Bloglines is the best. Period. Well, the new Bloglines beta is finally here. The Bloglines team was lazy for the past two years, releasing only minor (and useless) additions. But not this one, this is a whole new interface.
Or should I say that the best just got better...

If you're using another reader, it's time to check out Bloglines. Yes, even you Google Reader users. Trust me, I've tried it switching several times and returned to Bloglines at the end of the day. If you're using Bloglines, it's time to check out the new Beta. And, if you're not using any RSS reader... it's a good opportunity to start.

Personally, I think there's a lot of untapped potential around RSS. It will be interesting to see what Bloglines has up its' sleeve for the new beta. It's something worth tracking.

Comments

[Jonathan Goldstein]

The new bloglines looks a lot like iGoogle.

[Zviki]

I would roughly categorize the on-line feed readers into 2 major categories: dedicated feed readers and start pages (or widget containers). In the first category you find sites geared solely to feed reading and do a great job handling hundreds of feeds. These include Google Reader and Bloglines. In the second group you have customizable pages that include feeds as widgets, among other things. These include iGoogle, My Yahoo and NetVibes.

The two are essentially different and they cater for different types of users. The first is for "RSS power users". The second is great for light reading or for including casual feed reading with your everyday tasks, like searching the web.

In the new beta, Bloglines added a start page, which is a bit like what you get in iGoogle. It's not the highlight of the version. iGoogle is a better start page. But, if you have more than 20-30 feeds you read regularly, iGoogle will be useless.