Round 2: Feedly vs. Google Reader

Last week, I switched from Windows Live in favor of Feedly. I did it as a test (much like the switch I tried with Google Chrome earlier this year). I had a feeling that Windows Live would be the loser in the battle and thus far, I have not missed Windows Live at all. Here is what I like from Feedly that I could not get with Windows Live:

• I can organize the RSS feeds into topics, by chronological order or several other ways that offer me more flexibility than Windows Live. I ultimately always use the Chronological order which provides me one list of links across all of my feeds. This was not an apparent options with Windows Live.
• I can read the feed from a webpage Feedly. With Windows Live you need to mouseover the link and keep your mouse hovering over the link to be able to read it. That takes too much work so I just end up clicking it and then I end up with so many articles open that I never get around to actually reading it.

So, I definitely do not see myself going back to Windows Live at this point, but should I keep using Feedly? The answer is 'NO'. There are two reasons why:

• Feedly is a plugin with Firefox which means that I can only access Feedly from the computer I installed it on. That is a problem as I am constantly on different computers. I have no loyalty to any computer and prefer to configure my poreferences on the web instead of the desktop. This seems like a serioud weakness, but more importantly...
• Feedly 'feeds' off of Google Reader and as far as I can tell, does not really provide any must-have incremental features that I would not otherwise find on Google Reader. And because Google Reader is a hosted service (ie. found on the web, not the desktop), I can access it from anywhere.

So, now I move on to Google Reader. I am excited about the stats page which will show me just how much time I waste and I am excited to keep adding feeds to my reading habit. Just this week since I started using Feedly, I have added probably 10-15 new sources of information. That is something I would not have done on Windows Live because it would get too cumbersome. Now, I can do it seamlessly.

Next up, solving that Kindle problem...

12/16/08 UPDATE: Google Reader just launched a redesign today. We'll see how this affects my perception of the tool. My first impression is that the redesign is pretty minor with some color changes and some minor features. At its heart, I do not see any major changes that will affect my original requirements. Here is what is new.

12/20/08 Update: Google Reader is just what I wanted. More and more, I seem to be using Google's applications - Gmail, Blogger, Reader, Docs and Sites... just to name a few from this past week. The two additions I'd like to see to Google Reader are: update the stats to show me a breakdown of my media consumption (pie graph showing % of total read by source & tag) and the last one is on me: I love the share feature but I need to figure out how to convince my Dad and other friends to use Google Reader so we can share articles back and forth... hmmm

Feedly vs. Windows Live: Start your engines

I just loaded the Firefox extension for Feedly. The reason is that I want to get a single feed of all the news that I read. With more than 50 regular websites and news sources in my rotation and probably hundreds of other potentials, I found I had graduated to needing a new way to consume this information.

I have been using Windows Live for the past 2-3 years because of the tab experience that they introduced a couple of years ago when they launched. With the tabs, I could categorize the feeds into different buckets based on topics. I liked this because it was much better than My Yahoo which forced me to put all of my feeds onto one page.

Now, I find that I want my feeds all on the same page, but co-mingled with each other. This means, that instead of looking at my feeds separately as I do on Windows Live or as I did on My Yahoo, I want to see all of the articles co-mingled and organized chronologically.

After trying about 5 different add-ons from the Mozilla website, I settled on Feedly. The one thing to note about Feedly is that it pulls directly from Google Reader which also offers the co-mingled article feature that I want... but the interface is just not as appealing. To add a new feed, I need to add it to Google Reader and then Feedly brings it in. A little time-consuming, but we'll see if it is a frustration or just a hurdle.

Perhaps most interesting is when I take a step back from the features and reflect on how easy it is for me to maximize the volume of and efficiency of how I consume news and other information. Incredible. And it is all FREE (except for my internet access charges... which is still cheap when you think about it. How much do you think a King would have paid 500 years ago to have access to all of the worlds printed information?)

Now, I just need to figure out how to get all of this onto a Kindle (I need to figure out how to get a Kindle 2, first, I guess). Oh, the frustration we face when we desire what is new and shiny!

Feedly as of 8am on 12/3/08:



Windows Live as of 8am on 12/3/08: