Beginning of the end for Bloglines?

I've just started playing with Google's news aggregator/RSS reader called (surprise!) Google Reader, announced on the Google blog this weekend.

My first reaction was "ah crap, now I've got to import all my Bloglines feeds." Of course, that's a hassle that I'll look to avoid until I get a better sense of what this is all about. Some early thoughts:

* It's one of the first times I've seen an RSS aggregator that doesn't require you to copy/paste an RSS URL string, or at least have to deal with it in any automated fashion.

* To a complete rss/newsreader newbie, I'm not sure that it will be as intuitive as Google will hope. You are at first presented with a blank screen which can be a bit intimidating. On the upside, a quick search in the "search for new content" bar and you are away.

* I like the chronological list of stories that get populated into the left hand side. The ability to "star" stories of interest is good, except that when I tried this feature I got an "oops" error message. No doubt it will get fixed easily/quickly.

* The keyboard shortcuts are a nice touch, but not sure that I'd convert from using arrow keys.

What do you think? Worth migrating from Bloglines?

Comments

[Asher Moses]

I guess my main question would be, what does Google Reader offer that Bloglines doesn't? I'm yet to use the service, but Bloglines has worked quite well for me so far so I don't see much of a reason to jump ship.

This info is probably easy enough to find, but do you know if Google Reader can be accessed in mobile form from a blackberry/pda?

[Andy]

Reader is a nice product and the sharing feature is great, but I won't be switching unless Reader has a way to handle email subscriptions like Bloglines. This is a killer feature of Bloglines, and I haven't seen a similar feature in Reader.

The Google crew probably thinks email subscriptions are dead and everyone is using RSS, but there are a few niche email services likely to hang around for a while yet and if Reader could handle them I'd probably switch.

Until then, I'll stick with Bloglines - it's served me well.

[Simon Sharwood]

Why does anyone bother with a seperate blog-reading app?
I find Firefox Live Bookmarks are stunningly great: every headline I want at my fingertips in an app I already use all day anyway.
One app to rule them all, I say ...

[Trevor Cook]

No, stay with bloglines

[Mark Aufflick]

I have been using Google Reader for months. I do, admittedly, have a higher than average aptitute for using technology, but I no longer use any rss reader other than Google Reader (nor do I visit news sites directly any more).

The keyboard shortcuts are great when you're dealing with a long list of entries. Have you noticed yet that you can use your mouse's scroll wheel in the list?

The biggest benefit of any web-based rss reader is portability. I am currently in London, on a firewalled network where I couldn't plug in my Powerbook even if I wanted too. I can still access my google reader though - just as if I was at home in Sydney. I can even grab a few minutes on a free PC in an airline lounge to get updated.

If you're a firefox user, life is even better. Get Greasemonkey (if you don't know about greasemonkey you're not living) and look at the google reader specific scripts on userscripts.org. I have a greasmonkey script installed that recognises RSS feeds in pages such that I get a little orange icon appearing which, when clicked, subscribes to the RSS advertised on that page in my Google Reader profile. I never need to copy/paste an rss url.

[alan jones]

Personally, i like the way my Apple Mail client handles my fat inbox, so i'm always happiest if i can receive my RSS in my email client. I don't think I'm alone in that.

These days I'm working on persuading all my favourite blog publishers to use www.zookoda.com, which automates building an email subscriber list, sucks up your RSS feed, and then emails it out to your subscribers on whatever schedule you wish. And it's free.

Take a stab at it.

[Mike T]

Mark, after reading your post I decided to investigate how long it would take to make the switch to Google Reader. I knew nothing about exporting/importing from RSS readers and have only ever used the one reader (Bloglines) so I thought I was a suitable guinea-pig. Yet it took less than 5 minutes. There's a standard format called OPML which worked fine for me. Bloglines help pages weren't too.. er... helpful, but this page did the trick: http://freshsqueeze.com/support/pulpfiction/#exportbl