Kent Newsome on technology, music and life

1/17/2008


Google Reader: Waiving the White Flag

OK, let me go ahead and get this out of the way.  I have capitulated to the inevitability of Google Reader.

I've written quite a bit about the frustrations I've experienced with Bloglines- the two most frequent ones being the need to reload at least once before I can successfully click on a post and the fact that it never seems to finish loading in Firefox.  I had looked into Google Reader before, but found its interface lacking.  But continuing difficulties with Bloglines kept driving me back to Google Reader to take another look.

The migration started slowly.  I initially used Google Reader exclusively to read my news feeds (newspapers, Google news, the Houston Chronicle, etc.).  Over a few weeks, I started to feel more comfortable with the interface.  A few days ago, I made the switch completely, paring my feeds back, dividing them into categories and putting them into Google Reader folders.  At the moment I have Music, News, Personal (the comment feed here, my Flickr feed, my Yahoo Pipes feed, etc.), Entertainment, Local News, Sports and Tech.

gr I have to admit, it's growing on me.  There are two must-have features that are strangely missing, but on the whole I am coming around.  Here are my major likes and dislikes.

Likes:

1) I like how fast and responsive it seems, especially when compared to my recent Bloglines experience.  It's also a treat to look up and see that the little circle in my Firefox tab is not spinning.  That's something I haven't experienced in a long time at Bloglines.

2) I like the implementation of the folders and the ease with which you can manage your feeds, with two glaring exceptions (see below).

3) I like the ease with which you can change the view from expanded to list, and from all to new.

4) I like the ease with which you can click posts in list view, expand them, and then collapse them.

Dislikes:

1) I don't like, need or want all of the sharing stuff in the first list at the top of the left hand side.  All of this takes up a lot of real estate that I'd rather use for other stuff.  I'm probably in the minority on this, since I haven't bought into the social network craze.

2) I really, really don't like the fact that I can't sort my feeds alphabetically within a folder.  This would take about 30 seconds to code, yet for some indefensible reason it's not there.  This is almost a deal stopper for me.

3) I really, really wish there was a setting to mark all posts as read when you leave a feed in list view.  I find that I am using list view almost exclusively and it is a pain in the butt to have to remember to click the mark all as read button when I'm done.  This feature exists for the expanded view.

Google Reader feels a little like a work in progress and there are a lot of obvious improvements that could and should be implemented.  But it's starting to feel like my home base for news and feed reading.

All in all, I'm reasonably happy with Google Reader.

I can't believe I just typed that.

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Posted by Kent @ 1/17/2008 09:35:00 PM | Permalink

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7 Comment(s):

Welcome to Google Reader! :)

By Blogger Mike Reynolds, at 1/17/2008 10:24 PM  
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Churchill said:

"Democracy is the worst system devised by the wit of man, except for all the others.”

Let's reword as "Google Reader is the worst web-based feed reader..."

=-ron k jeffries

By Anonymous rjeffries, at 1/17/2008 11:10 PM  
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I'm sorry you were having trouble with content loading on Bloglines. We are aware of the issue and are looking at ways to resolve it. A lot of the features that you mention you like about Google Reader are also available in our new Beta, in addition to many others. I'm sorry you've left and I hope some day you'll come back.

Bjorn Tipling
Bloglines Engineer

By Anonymous Bjorn Tipling, at 1/17/2008 11:41 PM  
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Not sure if this is what you meant, but hit Shift A in list view and it will mark all feeds in your folder or feed as read. Check out the list of Keyboard short cuts. They seem odd at first but then you get used to them quickly and end up saving you quite a bit of time.

Also as far as Shared stuff goes, I didn't think I'd need it either, but now I catalog anything and everything I want to remember for awhile by Sharing it. So who knows, maybe you'll find a need for it someday?

By Blogger Arvin Dang, at 1/18/2008 1:15 AM  
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I'm not big on the sharing either, but the 'trends' button is kind of neat.

I don't know if it's something I did, but all of my folders (and the feeds listed within them) are all in alphabetical order. And I sure didn't add them in that order. Maybe you could try exporting your list to opml and re-importing it. Dunno, but it's odd to me that yours aren't ordered automatically.

And as far as auto-marking things as read in list view, I'm not in favour of that. I tend to jump around sometimes just clicking on folders and quickly scanning. I still like to be able to come back there with the unread ones marked. I think the 'mark all as read' button is simple enough.

One other thing that I find indispensable is the starring of posts. I can quickly scan and star anything of interest and mark the whole lot as read. Then come back to the starred item list when I've got time to read. It's a godsend to me.

RQ

By Anonymous rfquerin, at 1/18/2008 5:46 AM  
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1) the left side column can be collapsed. Look for little arrow between windows.

My dislike is that I have to go to a different window to delete a feed. I would like to be able delete from left column list.

By Blogger GoingLikeSixty.com, at 1/18/2008 8:47 AM  
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Mike, thanks.

RJ, that's a very accurate description. It is, warts and all, the best alternative I have found so far.

Bjorn, thanks for posting. I still have my Bloglines account, and will check back from time to time. I'll also look at the beta, which I was not using.

Arvin, thanks for that tip. I'm getting used to clicking the all read button, but I still wish having them automatically marked read was an option, like it is in expanded view.

Richard, I think my alphabetical problem began when I renamed some feeds. But my feeds are definitely not in alphabetical order. I tried re-adding them, and that didn't help. Google just needs to spend the minute or so it would take to add this feature. I have since discovered the starring feature, and I agree- it is wonderful. I use it every day.

60, I don't know if this helps, but you can unsubscribe via the "Feed Settings" button near the top right.

By Blogger Kent, at 1/19/2008 11:02 PM  
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