Comments on: Google Reader vs Bloglines

By: CW

CW — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 23:16:00 +0000

Hi Jonathan, thanks for stopping by. I must confess I haven’t been paying Bloglines much attention since I wrote this post, I’ve been using Google Reader instead. It’s been working fine, and because I have been noting complaints from others I haven’t felt compelled to go back.

Only thing is that Google Reader doesn’t do blogs, as such, although it does have nice features, such as the ability to “star” posts, or share them (which creates a page similar to what Bloglines offers with its blogging feature). I suspect if you want fully-fledged blogging you will need to use Google’s Blogger

By: Jonathan H. Harwell

Jonathan H. Harwell — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 20:56:55 +0000

Another Bloglines quirk that has been happening to me for the past couple of months is when I click on “mark all new,” it doesn’t hold the posts. I’ll also give Google Reader a spin…I might want to migrate. I hope the blogging feature there is more than the bare-bones Bloglines blogging, which has been its greatest weakness to me.

By: CW

CW — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 03:05:42 +0000

Still keeping an eye on Bloglines and using Google Reader to test. So far nothing positive to report about Bloglines (ie nothing’s changed).

By: Simone

Simone — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 10:32:45 +0000

I’ve also been having problems with Bloglines lately, and have been thinking of moving to Google reader. I’ve tried it before, and it’s also got some features that I like the look of.

Thanks for the experiment

By: m

Fri, 01 Dec 2006 06:44:38 +0000

Bloglines is just not working atm. I did some tests and some feeds I subscribed to were days or weeks old in their preview windows and in the subsequent subscriptions.

I tested Sage and Google reader and they both had no issues. Bloglines should definately be avoided at present imo.

By: Isaak

Isaak — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 03:05:37 +0000

Well, it seems like Bloglines is having some technical problems as I’ve read on a few blogs about people complaining non-updating of feeds on Bloglines. Guess you’ll have to wait out their teething problems for the time being.

Google Reader is definitely a worthy replacement. Have used a couple of times and it has been a happy experience.

By: Angel, librarian and educator

Angel, librarian and educator — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 00:57:52 +0000

Actually, I have been wondering the same thing as well when it comes to Bloglines. It seems updating has become terribly inconsistent. Not only do I not see things that I know or suspect have regular updates not update, but I have also seen it pick up a lot of old stuff after the fact. In other words, I read it, then see it picked up again. And I know it is not all a blogger that updated an old post. No word from Bloglines whatsoever. By the way, I did get curious as well and imported my Bloglines file to a Google reader. I will see how it goes. Was easier since I had the account that goes along with the Blogger Beta I have. Best, and keep on blogging.

By: CW

CW — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 00:00:14 +0000

Ooh M we must have been commenting at the same time *Twilight Zone music*

I don’t know what’s been going on with Bloglines. Some weeks ago they released an upgrade which meant that updated feeds were displaying very quickly without you having to refresh the screen (you could sometimes watch the feeds update - if you had nothing better to do on a sleepy Thursday afternoon). Maybe this played havoc with their servers because now I’m noticing that these updates aren’t happening as frequently anymore. And all the issues with some feeds not updating at all started happening too.

By: CW

CW — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 23:56:16 +0000

Thanks, Kathryn. I’m just glad the Yellow Wiggle now knows what’s ailing him, and can take steps to look after himself. It must have been very scary to be fainting for no apparent reason…

I’ll keep keeping an eye on Bloglines and Google Reader. Not sure what I’ll do. Do I really want to turn everything I do online over to the Google Empire?

By: m

Thu, 30 Nov 2006 23:54:45 +0000

I think it’s important to be able to get your feeds right away. If you have to wait half a day to a day for the feeds to update then you may well miss being able to participate in any conversation on topics that come up for that time.

As to why bloglines may be doing this. Doesnt blog software have minimum wait times before sending off update queries for RSS. This is to stop people from spamming RSS feed sites with new file requests. It could well be that bloglines has a minimum universal cooldown time before sending off a new RSS feed query and in the meantime is only showing you the cache version.