<< Re: Google Reader vs. Bloglines Market Share | Home | Microsoft Evangelist Interviews Corba God >>

Bloglines And Google Reader Side By Side

I'm not known to be a quick switcher. The reason is usually because switching means learning anew, and I'm a slow learner. And I usually am not motivated to learn new ways of doing things that I already know how to do the old way.

This put me on the backside of the adoption curve. And sometimes I become the last ones leaving a tool. And that's fine with me. That's why I haven't switched to Macs (although being surrounded by a bunch of MacBook Pros does have its effect. (id o = [[NSObject alloc] init])). That's why I haven't switched to Ubuntu from Fedora Core (although the inevitable is fast approaching). That's why I'm still watching over-the-air television on a low-def set, etc.

So in the Bloglines vs. Google Reader race, I've stuck with Bloglines.com, for no other reason than that I already know how Bloglines.com works. However I've had some issues with Bloglines.com lately, one I already mentioned 49 days ago (which, come to think of it, might have been fixed already because I haven't experienced the problem recently), and another that I haven't mentioned here, but reported to Bloglines.com. This other problem causes Firefox to spin to 100% CPU (50% on my hyperthreading box) on Windows and not to exit even when the close button is clicked (the Firefox window will go away, but the process remain running at 100% CPU).

Being the conservative that I am, I will try running both Bloglines.com and Google Readers at the same time. Actually Dean's comment the other day prompted me to add Google Reader to my Firefox home pages.

Bloglines and Google Reader Side By Side

So I'll be using Bloglines.com and Google Reader in parallel for the next few weeks. And I'll decide whether to switch at the end.

A few questions I have right away are:

  1. Is there a Google Reader subscription bookmarklet?
  2. Can Google Reader give me a list of my subscriptions so that I can include them in my blogroll?
  3. How do you "mark all as read" in Google Reader?
Tags :
Responses[6] RSS feed for responses to this blog entry
Posted by Weiqi Gao on February 22, 2007 7:01:26 PM CST #


Reply

Re: Bloodlines And Google Reader Side By Side

Comment from IUSR on February 23, 2007 12:07:46 AM CST #
Well I tried to find the answer for the 1st question but without any success finally. I remember there was a URI for previewing the subscription of a feed before actually subscribing it, but now... Maybe it was for the former version. I need to read those docs:)
For the last question, maybe [All Items] -> [Mark all as read]? I dare not try this, am afraid of losing track of all my feeds :P
Reply

Re: Bloodlines And Google Reader Side By Side

Comment from Weiqi Gao on February 23, 2007 6:54:10 AM CST #

Thanks. Select "All Items" and then "Mark all as read" does indeed work.

Here's what I think Bloglines.com has the edge. In Bloglines.com, I can just click on "Mark All Read" at the top level folder that says "219 feeds" and I'll be done.

By the way, Google Reader's "Mark all as read" feels more grammartically correct than Bloglines.com's "Mark All Read."

Reply

Re: Bloodlines And Google Reader Side By Side

Comment from IUSR on March 5, 2007 12:31:52 AM CST #

Just found the link: https://www.google.com/reader/view/feed/ENCODED___FEED____URL
e.g., https://www.google.com/reader/view/feed/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.springframework.org%2Fnode%2Ffeed subscribes to springframework.org. Requires login.

This seems to be the subscription link came with the former version of google reader. I've no idea when this link will disappear.

The link http://fusion.google.com/add?feedurl=ENCODED_FEED_URL seems to let the feed subscribed to your Google IG.

Reply

Re: Bloglines And Google Reader Side By Side

Comment from Carey on February 25, 2007 2:25:22 PM CST #
There’s a couple of bookmarklets on the Official Google Reader Blog.

There doesn’t seem to be a way to get a list of subscriptions automatically, but you can manually export the OPML from your Settings.
Reply

Re: Bloglines And Google Reader Side By Side

Comment from jcwinnie on March 3, 2007 10:05:30 AM CST #
I started using  Bloglines early on, when it seemed a much easier approach than most newsreaders and more refined than the one I could host for free myself.

When Google Reader arrived, I took a look because of the general high quality and ease of use that Google products demonstrate. But, I wasn't swayed from Bloglines, mainly because Google Reader seemed to be taking a Microsoft approach, i.e., we'll push the content we want you to see, rather than what you want to see.
Reply

Re: Bloglines And Google Reader Side By Side

Comment from Emma on April 3, 2007 5:50:51 AM CDT #
I'm still using both ... I like the bookmarklet for Bloglines, I also like the fact that I can have a grazr powered view of my bloglines feeds on my blog. (Which doens't show up the folders I've set to private)
I like the fact that I can have a feed from Google Reader on my Google personal home page.

So, what I'm having to do is to add feeds to bloglines & then reasonably often open Google Reader, purge all the feeds, export the feeds from bloglines as an OPML file & import them to Google Reader - then filter for the private folder & remove them. A bit of a pain.

It's a shame that I can't use the same synchronisation between Bloglines & GoogleReader as I can between Bloglines & Grazr. Oh well. One day.

Add a comment Send a TrackBack