Bloglines

Bloglines is an online feed reader. You can select the websites you want to read and Bloglines will monitor them. All new articles are collected and displayed within the application. It makes it easy to keep track of what is happening without constantly surfing around between many websites. Bloglines was started in 2003 and it was one of the first online RSS readers. They had a lot of users and were bought by the parent company of Ask.com in 2005. After the takeover, development slowed to a crawl and no major features where introduced since. In 2007 a new general manager and major updates were introduced. The other major online RSS application is Google Reader. With the new interface the features of Bloglines are at a comparable level. The major difference is the approach to browsing the feeds. In Google Reader all new articles come in one big stream while Bloglines splits them up per feed. This makes it easy to focus on a specific site but makes it hard to keep up to date with everything. Bloglines just underwent a major update which went by the name of Beta Bloglines. They introduced drag and drop functionality and different viewing modes (quick, full and 3-plane). The addition of a start page makes it easier to browse stories. The site feels responsive and quick but the three different interfaces are a bit confusing. The registration requires an email address, your email address needs to be confirmed but you can already use your account before confirming. After the registration you can select subjects that interest you based on which a few feeds will be added to your profile. Bloglines is supported by ads. Currently the ads are barely visible on the site and all the screen space is devoted to the feeds. Bloglines is a good option if you like to casually browse your feeds. It's easy to get a good overview of what is happening on certain blogs through the start page. If you want to make sure you don't miss anything you are better off using Google Reader.