Bloglines vs. Google Reader: The Verdict
I have been running Bloglines and Google Reader side by side for 71 days. Both show up as part of my Firefox home pages, at home and at work. The idea is that I should make them equally available for an extended evaluation period, and whichever one I instinctively go to at the end of the evaluation period wins.
Today, I removed Google Reader from my Firefox home pages. And here's the Bloglines feature that won me over (or kept me there, to be exact):
Notice the "Keep New " checkbox at the lower right corner. It allows me to keep the post as new, so that it will show up the next time I view the same blog. Why would I want to keep the post new? Because it contains information that warrants further examination (in this case, Kyle pointed his readers to a set of pretty good JavaScript videos at Yahoo!Video).
I can't do something similar in Google Readers. The closest thing I can find is the " Mark as read" checkbox underneath each post. However the effect of checking that checkbox isn't very durable. It goes away the next time I read the entry.
Prior to today's decision, I have already accumulated several reasons in favor of Bloglines:
In Bloglines, as soon as I click on a subscription in the left pane, all of the unread and keep new entries of that subscription show up in the right pane and everything is marked as read. This allows me to scan my subscriptions very quickly.
In Google Reader, the posts are marked unread after I click on a subscription in the left pane. I have to go to the right pane and click on each individual posts to mark each as read. This is very clumsy and slowed me down considerably. This puts a little hesitation in to my choosing Google Readers.
I understand this Blogline feature is quite controversial in REST circles, it not being idempotent and all. But I'll take usability over programming orthodoxy any day.
Both Bloglines and Google Readers offer the choice of displaying all feeds or displaying only updated feeds. However, in Google Reader, this is a one click option. During the evaluation period, I switched between the two modes several times, unsatisfied with either of them.
In Bloglines, this is a three click option which isn't obvious at all. So I did not fiddle with this option during the evaluation period. The end result, my Bloglines experience is more consistent while my Google Reader experience has a split personality.
Similar things can be said about Google Reader's one click choice between the expanded view and the list view, a la GMail. I ended up switching between them, unsatisfied with either.
With Bloglines, I liked the expanded view just fine.
Bloglines and Google Reader both offer some vi-like keyboard shortcuts. I never use those in Bloglines, and my experience there is just fine.
With Google Reader, I ended up trying them (because they are very similar to the keyboard shortcuts in GMail and I use them in GMail all the time) and not liking them. The problem has to do with the way the focus is switched from the left pane to the right pane and back. The commands are simply too complicated. And that somehow became yet another negative for Google Reader.
I know, I know, this is not fair. But I did not promise a fair evaluation.
All of these, plus Bloglines "Sub with Bloglines" bookmarklet and "Blogroll web service" features, which I use quite heavily, tipped my balance towards Bloglines.
I'm sorry, Google Reader.