A good friend who just started writing a blog asked me how to subscribe to other blogs that she might want to read - and before giving any kind of definitive answer I decided to re-evaluate the incumbent candidates - Google Reader and Bloglines.
Google Reader has been the natural choice for the last couple of years purely because it’s fast, and relatively straightforward to use. The only downsides are that it is somewhat technical (albeit powerful), and is connected to the Google grid - meaning you need a Google Account, and they suddenly know even more about you.
During the time Google Reader has been winning hearts and minds among the technical crowd, I have noticed that personal bloggers still tend to use BlogLines, so set off to find out why. What were BlogLines doing to combat the threat of Google ?
It turns out quite a lot.
If you visit http://beta.bloglines.com you will be presented with a slick, minimalist, fast, intuitive feed aggregator. It has multiple methods of reading subscribed feeds, a wonderful portal-like front page, and a level of polish I have not seen in a long time.
After half an hour comparing Google Reader and the Bloglines Beta side by side, I have switched.
For me the reasons are not purely based on functionality and design - as I mentioned earlier, I am becoming concerned that Google know too much about me. I’m not so worried about Google themselves mis-using the knowledge they have accrued about my internet use, but I am worried about that data being compromised. Distributing the major functions of your online existence is an effective way of minimising the loss of identity associated with a security breach.