Saturday, March 30, 2013

The Reader, Part 1

With Google Reader’s demise little more than three months away, I have to start looking for a new reader for my blog feeds. There are quite a few out there, but they have to meet my stringent standards if they want me to use them. So I’m going to spend a week with the different possibilities and see which one is the best.

What, did you think it was about book readers? Sorry, but there are more important things to worry about right now.

First up, Feedly.

First of all, I used this in Chrome so your mileage may vary depending on your browser.

Pros
---I was able to import my blog feeds from Reader (I hope this sticks after it disappears).
---Very easy to access my lists and change them around (easier than Reader, in fact).
---They have this thing called the Feedly Mini, which is how you can share things on Twitter.
---Navigation is very easy.
---I like how it shows only the blogs with new posts in my blog list. Usually those are the only ones I want to see and it’s easy to click if I want to see the others.
---There's a wide variety of options to view the posts with.

Cons
---The presentation could be better—themes have fancy names, but just change the color. Whee.
---Posts come up in the standard Feedly font and colors rather than whatever the blogger chooses.
---I don’t like that it sorted my lists alphabetically. I have my own order.
---I hate that I can’t go to my reader with the click of a button anymore. Not that I’ll be able to do so after July…
---It would be nice if the Feedly Mini, I don’t know had the ability to take you to the Feedly homepage. Seriously, how is that not there?
---The next button doesn’t actually click to the next one in your list. It’s...confusing. I still haven’t quite figured it out.

Overall, it’s kind of a watered-down Reader clone. Not great, not terrible. I’ll use it if I don’t find anything better and I won’t complain about it toomuch.

9 comments:

  1. I wasn't really happy with Feedly. Trying The Old Reader now, which seems better but still not quite. Would be interested if you come across the perfect replacement.

    mood

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    1. Believe me, if I come across the perfect replacement, I'll be shouting it from the rooftops.

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  2. Feedly is growing on me. The only thing that bugs me is I wish it would let me organize the order of blogs within the group. I do like its drag and drop group organizer.

    I'm considering making a list of all the blogs I follow in a word document, just in case they get lost when Reader disappears. Ugh. That'll be a chore.

    I hadn't heard of Feedly Mini. How do I get that?
    (I browse with Firefox, BTW.)

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  3. I've never really used Reader, so this hasn't impacted me.

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  4. Ooh, good, somebody else is trying out the other readers so I don't have to! Bloggers are awesome.

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  5. Feedly says it's working on something that'll make it so we don't lose our blog lists when Reader goes away. So, there's that.

    I've been playing with Feedly, but I am curious as to whether or not there's a better one out there. Glad you're doing the work for us.

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  6. I'll have to look into Feedly. Thanks for the heads up!

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  7. I never switched over to Reader in the first place.

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Please validate me.