Bloglines (web based)
Posted by Ron Jeffries, 6/7/04 at 8:48:13 PM.
Note: This review may be somewhat unfair since Bloglines is the only RSS aggregator I have seriously used.
In general I find Bloglines to operate in a reasonably obvious manner. I like how it shows me my list of subscribed feeds, with the number of unread entries shown in parens next to the feed title. I like how whatvere feed I have highlighted then shows in the right-hand pane (but this is in common with almost all readers, I think).
I do wish there was an option to have long feed titles (in left-hand pane) be folded. But that's a fairly minor point for me.
Some nits: I regret that it "loses my place" when I go and add a new feed,
which I do far far too often. <g> (I am at 275 feeds today. I know, I'm a piker compared iwth Scoble, but I think that's still an excessive number and I should do some housecleaning)
A suggested enhancement for Bloglines would be a little button to click that
switches from "expand area for feed names" to "expand area for feed contents." I am constantly dragging that divider line back and forth. Actually, if it would fold feed names, I think that would be even better.
Also missing (and I understand other RSS readers have this) there is no display of teh
total number of feeds with unread entries, nor of teh total number of unread items.
Yeah, it would be depressing, but all I see is how many unread items there are feed by feed.
What else? maybe the ability that when I clcik on a feed item that it automagically fires up a new browser tab? I do that manually ALL the time.
I liek Bloglines and currently am not motivated to try anything else.
Since I routeinly use three and sometimes four computers, I am NOT interested in a client I need to install on my desktop. I would consider a clinet that somehow is synced with a web based solution, but frankly I doubt it is worth it.
-ron jeffries
