How to Keep Track of Your Favorite Blogs: Part II

Once I wrote Part I of How to Keep Track of Your Favorite Blogs, I realized there was much still to write about. After all, the world of RSS readers is vast. In steps Daiane, a fabulous fashion blogger and semipro internet user. She wonderfully offered to write the first guest post for Designing 4 Life on the subject of different RSS readers. I will let her take over now…

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As you surf the Internet on a daily basis, it is very likely that you continuously keep up with many blogs and sites. Or maybe you just want to have all the news in one place so you can read them at a later time.

Enter the RSS reader. If you’re not familiar with the term, check out Amanda’s previous post. Once you are, read on and find out what options are available!

Online readers

These are recommended for light, easy reading. There are hundreds of them out there. How will you know which one to choose? This are my top three choices:

1. Bloglines (Beta) -> http://beta.bloglines.com

I used this one for three years. It has a classic interface for a RSS reader: reading list on the left, posts displayed on the right.

It also has the key feature that any RSS reader should have: marking posts as “read” once you scroll past them. This option saves incredible amounts of time and it is only available in the beta version.

As much as I dislike to admit it, Bloglines Beta was getting slower and slower at news aggregation, and most of the time it got stuck or denied showing me the feeds. It was time to end the three year long friendship and search for something better.

2. Google Reader -> http://www.google.com/reader

A very good competitor to Bloglines. The interface though looks heavier and a little bit confusing. Google loves to add on top of the page various gadgets like a search box, an “add subscription” button and other such things, which make the reading space become less important.

3. Bloglovin’ -> http://www.bloglovin.com

The launch of Bloglovin marked a new era in the world of RSS readers. Instead of having panels with blogs and posts, you have short summaries on the homepage. By clicking on these, they take you to the original website (still under Bloglovin) from each you can browse further either by keep reading your own subscriptions or by clicking away on anything else on the specific page. You can return anytime on Bloglovin, mark favorites, read the next feed etc.

Desktop-based readers

As a semipro Internet user, not all of my needs were met by the readers above: I wanted autonomy, self-management and, most of all, social features for sharing what I read.

If you are anything like me, this is what you should look for:

1. Free of charge readers: not all desktop-based RSS readers are for free (or at least not fully-featured). If you are not a business-head, you probably won’t need all the complex extra features.

2. A user-friendly look: If the color scheme, fonts or features don’t make you want to use it, just click the download button. Look at the screenshots (where available) to help with your decision.

3.Download the latest version. I know this may sound silly, but the existence of multiple versions of an RSS reader means that the product is being updated and improved on a regular basis. Take a look into the comments section to see what people are saying: some of them maybe be developers and have something to say that can influence your decision, be it good or bad.

What I use now:

As you can see, I experimented a lot when it comes to choosing and using an RSS reader. After a few trial runs with various RSS readers, I decided to keep Sharefire (-> http://sharefirereader.com). This is a completely free, open-source reader. What sold me on? The possibility to switch between the feed and the real website (without leaving the reader), the smart topics option and the social sharing possibilities.

What RSS reader do you use?

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Daiane is an architecture student by day, fashion blogger by night, & occasional geek. She has been running her website since 2007. You can also find her on Twitter @sweetdaiane and Facebook.

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