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Author Topic: ONLINE RSS Reader?  (Read 5422 times)

alxwz

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ONLINE RSS Reader?
« on: July 03, 2007, 05:01 PM »
I know there is a parallel thread about RSS readers, but this is about web-based solutions only, which have - until now - not really been covered in the other thread.

There are some decent alternatives for your desktop, but I'm still struggling to find a satisfying web-based solution.

I want something that
- gives me all posts in one overview (no need to go through different feeds or folders), one long list of headlines (absolutely required for my job) and
- uses a three-pane layout (preferably) and/or
- (at least) lets me see the major content when hovering the mouse over it.
- No clicking and no switching to a different view or window required to see at least the summmary of the message.
- It has to be possible to bulk discard posts to get them out of the view but easily keep selected messages by tagging, starring or clipping them.
- And it should be free and not plastered with ads all over the place.

I tried all the big three: Google Reader, Bloglines and NewsGator Online. None did what I wanted. I also had a look at Netvibes, Pageflakes and wanted to try Gobits, but couldn't register for the latter.
Google Reader comes close but doesn't give you the mouse-hovering summary and I couldn't figure out how to bulk discard the unwanted 95% of messages across all feeds while saving the few "good" ones.
Netvibes and Pageflakes separate each feed as a module and make you switch views to see the complete list, and that's still separated by feed. Pageflakes isn't bad, but has a strange list view and doesn't work on Safari or any other Webkit Mac browser.
For my personal needs/interests I'll probably go with Netvibes (or desktop apps for Win and Mac that both sync with Bloglines), but for work I need that "everything in one, easy to handle list" model.

I know there are other online readers out there, but I'd like to ask here before I do any more experimenting.

Any opinions?

(Edit: I came across this too late, but what I mean by "all posts in one overview" is what Dave Winer calls the "River of News": http://www.reallysim...tion.com/riverOfNews, i.e. a real aggregator.)
« Last Edit: July 03, 2007, 06:47 PM by alxwz »

allen

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Re: ONLINE RSS Reader?
« Reply #1 on: July 03, 2007, 10:20 PM »
My favorites are Google Reader and Rojo -- the former really seems closest to what you want, but alas--no hovering.  I'm not sure about Rojo, for me ability to use the keyboard rather than the mouse is key.

alxwz

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Re: ONLINE RSS Reader?
« Reply #2 on: July 05, 2007, 04:44 PM »
Rojo had been no. 4 on my list of readers to try, but I had kicked it off the list due to reliability issues I had been reading about.
Now I gave it a try but could see no real advantage over Google Reader (I don't care the least for the 'social stuff').
So Google Reader seems to be the way to go.

Nxqd3051990

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Re: ONLINE RSS Reader?
« Reply #3 on: July 05, 2007, 08:49 PM »
I stick with Google reader :)
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alxwz

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Re: ONLINE RSS Reader?
« Reply #4 on: July 09, 2007, 03:14 PM »
Rojo has been down for a few days now.
So much for their reliability.

(BTW: Probably wasn't such a bright idea to start another RSS reader thread, and the other thread now also discusses some online readers.  Maybe further discussion should take place there.)