Scobleizer - Latest Comments in Google Reader behind?

Re: Google Reader behind?

djmundy — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 09:53:14 -0000

Did you actually "read more than 29,000 items in the past 30 days" or are you like me, clicking "J" lots and skimming over headlines?

This post inspired me to write about something that's been on my mind for a while - How does Google Reader actually know which items I liked?

Re: Google Reader behind?

Chris L — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 20:27:30 -0000

I too have about 500 subscriptions and have bounced around various readers. Blogbridge is where I am at right now-- desktop based, but synchs between machines. I don't like the river of news for all 500 blogs. In fact, I would bet that this approach is greatly responsible for your recent realization that you've gotten in a rut of reading the same old Blogs.

At the same time, too much granularity isn't good.

With Blogbridge (and others can do things like this), I "rate" each blog with their 1-5 star mechanism and set a River of News view for each rating... I can also view non-starred feeds. This way I see a lot of feeds at a time and it is economical, but I also don't lose track of (and don't find any internal resistance to adding) new feeds that I have yet to evaluate...

Re: Google Reader behind?

antoniotrogu — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 05:21:28 -0000

I have discovered Google Reader thanks to Scobleizer, and I'm very happy with it. Page layout, speed and keyboard shortcuts are very good. Sometimes I leave the J-J-J... for mouse scroll, and it's very confortable too.
Thanks, Robert.
Antonio

Re: Google Reader behind?

Mike Procario — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 10:57:41 -0000

I have misses the trends feature since I go directly to all items. It is very nice. Apparently, I read all of the items in the low volume feeds, but I cannot keep up with high volume feeds like Scoblizer.

Re: Google Reader behind?

Kamal — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 16:03:48 -0000

Beware of Google Maps

http://maps.google.com/maps....

Re: Google Reader behind?

Jim Walton — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 09:22:34 -0000

I like Google Reader for now. I used Bloglines for a long time but Google seems like a cleaner interface. I use Firefox as well, so I'm not sure how Google performs in IE.

Re: Google Reader behind?

Steve Bryant — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 16:25:08 -0000

Hey Robert...I'm a lil' late responding, but FWIW I alternate between using Firefox 2.0 on a PC and Firefox 2.0 on a G4 Mac Mini. In both cases, I spend way too much time looking at that "loading" icon when I click on a new feed. (On the G4 it's waaaay slow, but that's mostly my 'puter's problem, not GReader.)

I agree the keyboard shortcuts are cool. And, I love the way GReader allows you to read individual items on the feed, as opposed to Bloglines, which auto-reads every item when you click on a feed. (Maybe there's a way to change that, not sure.) But GReader has some big UI problems when it comes to managing your feeds, which I detailed in an earlier post.

I'm sure GReader will improve over time, and I look forward to seeing it graduate from labs.

Re: Google Reader behind?

ioannusdeverani — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 14:35:51 -0000

I tried using Bloglines and I hated it. I love Google Reader. It is the best. The only thing is I wish I could post comments from Google Reader. It is a pain to go to the actual website to post comments. I rarely look at blogs. I just subscribe to them.

--Ioannus de Verani

Re: Google Reader behind?

browneyed — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 13:33:44 -0000

[This post was read using google reader]

Re: Google Reader behind?

Robert Scoble — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 13:01:45 -0000

Peter: OK, I'll try to find something else to talk about.

Maybe you might enjoy ScobleShow.com more. Out of more than 100 videos only three are about Google.

Re: Google Reader behind?

Nathan Weinberg — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 10:19:01 -0000

I tried switching to Google Reader a few weeks ago, jealous of its statistics feature. I quickly became sick of how slow it was, loading every 20 items only when I got to them, and not reminding me of the keyboard shortcuts (the way Bloglines does at the bottom of every page). Google Reader will always be slower than Bloglines, because it doesn't scroll down normally, while Bloglines scrolls as fast as the browser does.

When I realized Google Reader's OPML import had missed several folders of my subscriptions, it wasn't hard for me to decide to switch back to Bloglines. I like Reader, but I work in my RSS reader, and that means speed is key.

Re: Google Reader behind?

Peter — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 10:04:03 -0000

Robert,

I like your blog, but can you try and come up with something else besides Google news?

I challenge you to go a week on this blog without mentioning Google in any way. Come up with something else, please. I know some of your readers have drank the Google kool-aide, but there are some of us who have not.

Why not cover IT security for a story or two? Help your readers with something useful. Tell them about what's happening in the blogosphere in reagrds to security. Link to Hushmail. Do something different.

I know I'm but one reader, but the Google this, Google that is getting really boring.

Kudos to you for buying American. I like where Saturn is going, but I don't like OnStar (GM-wide option). I'm thinking about buying American my next car. I've been driving Japanese now for too long.

Re: Google Reader behind?

nicolas — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 07:01:53 -0000

Interesting. Was actually using Google Reader early last year and found it very easy to use. However, this whole "river of information" meme that everyone is pushing started to annoy me. Well the meme didn't but the reality did.

What I found was that I was getting lots of feeds from sites that didn't interested me at that moment and had to skim through them to get to my favourite sites.

So I swtiched to Netvibes and probably ain't going back. Sure it's slower - but you just load it, surf some other pages while your feeds are populating, then come back a couple of minutes later when they are loaded.

What I love is that I have all the headlines laid out for me so I can pick and choose very easily when scanning the page - and can set up a favourites page with all the feeds I follow religiously (like Mr Scoble's) ;-)

It's also a great way to save sites that you know you'll will want to visit if you ever get some spare time - great way to bookmark sites.

Re: Google Reader behind?

Liew — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 01:43:17 -0000

I noticed that it is slower too compared to bloglines on certain sites.

Re: Google Reader behind?

ryan — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 23:56:06 -0000

Google Reader has become a part of my daily life. I've read 4,921 items in the last 30 days (I couldn't fathom 29,000!) I'm with you on the shortcuts - they're extremely useful. I use "U" for longer posts to stretch out the full potential of my screen, and the "J + K" combination is deadly. I absolutely love everything about it. They've almost made it hard for me to find something I would like added to it -- which is a tough task when going against any critical RSS consumer.

And personally, I think Google Reader is extremely fast (I, too, use FF 2.0, though).

Re: Google Reader behind?

Douglas Karr — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 21:50:37 -0000

Fast is relative, isn't it? I, too, love my J, K, Shift-A shortcuts on Google Reader... and I can't read faster than I can click those keys. So... I'm not sure where speed plays a factor.

Re: Google Reader behind?

Colin — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 21:40:45 -0000

I just went back to try out Bloglines as a comparison.

Of course Bloglines is faster within each feed, after it loads the feed as a page. But overall which is faster and smoother to the overall user experience? Reader wins hands down.

But the issue is more one of style I think. Bloglines is probably fine for traditionalist MS Outlook types but the smooth river approach with Reader supplemented by iterative improvements places Reader in a different league.

And finally, seeing the same think on my 8700, repackaged for that format is sheer joy.

Re: Google Reader behind?

Skip — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 17:37:07 -0000

I've been using Google reader for a few months, and I've definitely noticed the slowness, in 2 ways. One - on IE7 at least, it leaks memory like a sieve, so if you leave the same browser window up for a few days it becomes unusably sluggish.

The second thing that I've noticed is that on some feeds there are hours, sometimes many hours, between when posts are posted and when they show up in reader.

I have no idea how often it actually checks them, and there doesn't seem to be any configuration on it. But I work around these things because I like the interface, and I like the ability to read feeds from multiple PCs and be kept in sync.

Re: Google Reader behind?

Aaron W — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 16:43:33 -0000

I'm one of the holdouts still on the old (v1) Google Reader.

Google built a brilliant interface around the "river of news" metaphor, then totally destroyed it when they decided to ripoff bloglines.

Robert, during your interview with the Reader team, there was a shout-out at the end to us original users who absolutely hate the new interface -- telling us to hold on.

I'm still holding, but it's getting annoying watching the new features all go to the new version, while I'm still waiting for a basic interface with article titles on the left and story text on the right.

It's a far superior way to read feeds, since you can scan titles and article text simultaneously.

Re: Google Reader behind?

Shawn Oster — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 15:05:53 -0000

I highly dislike Google Reader.

After using FeedDemon for years even trying Google Reader was a painful experience and I can only imagine that the people that like it only like it because it's the only reader they've ever tried.

Reader has nothing to recommend it and I steer everyone I know away from it.

Re: Google Reader behind?

andrew — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 14:59:46 -0000

I recently decided to try Google Reader for 1 week after using Bloglines for over 2.5 years.

I went back to Bloglines for a few reasons: 1) Google Reader page load/refresh was slow, I have a FiOS connection, and if I notice slowness, that is annoying. Plus the new item identifiers in the subscription pane don't seem to refresh as quickly as in Bloglines. 2) Time and Updated posts, Bloglines shows the original post date and an updated post date if necessary, Reader doesn't. In addition Reader doesn't pick up all updated posts, for example on my blog after the national championship game I updated a post from early December, Bloglines displayed it as a updated item, Reader didn't show it at all. If Reader misses updated posts, is it reliable? 3) I didn't think their was enough ui distinction between items, and hard for me to follow. Bloglines changes item background colors, Google Reader only changed the color (not significantly either) of item title and item border. 4) Subscription & Management, Reader contains extra steps to subscribe when using the Firefox feed icon, and the feed management page feels unorganized and hard to use for me. (Drag & Drop in Bloglines)

Those were some of the big things, imo, there are other nit picky items, that also caused me to go back. Maybe I have just grown attached to bloglines, but if I can't get comfortable with a RSS Reader in 7 days, it's just not going to work for me.

Overall, I do like the Google Reader interface, if they sped things up and tweaked some of the colors a little but, I'd probably switch.

Also Bloglines has the j,k,s keyboard shortcuts, so that is not unique to Reader. They don't have a decent link blog or any trends feature, but those were not important to me, although trends would be nice.

Re: Google Reader behind?

Joe Mansfield — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 14:10:18 -0000

I can't say whether GR is slower or faster than other online feed readers but it is definitely far more efficient than my previous offline readers even though the feed refresh may be slower. Google Reader trends tells me that I've read ~17000 items in the last 30 days. Guessing that there is somewhere between 100 and 200 words in each of those that means I've read something over 1.5 million words via the GR interface in that period. That's equivalent to about 15 novels. I don't have stats from my older reader to compare directly to but looking at my old OPML file I had far fewer subscriptions (a third) and my memory of them is that they published (far) fewer items. I wouldn't be surprised if I'm now reading four or five times as much via GR than any other way (including all forms of dead tree printing) and I count myself as a voracious reader. The reason for this is that the interface makes reading easy and pleasant.

That said there are some areas where GR needs development:
Search and filters - including dynamic labelling.
Labeling improvements - more power to the label.
Removal of duplicates.
Reader Mobile I - it's compact and efficient but it needs some more polish for ease of use.
Stats - I'd like to see this opened up for mashups.
Recommendations - match my reading preferences with others to recommend new feeds.

Re: Google Reader behind?

Jeff Cuscutis — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 14:08:05 -0000

Google Reader is slower on IE. The more items that get loaded in a single feed, the slower IE gets. Clicking to a different feed resets the performance. Firefox seems to be just as fast in a feed with 5 items as one with 100+

Re: Google Reader behind?

Bernie Zimmermann — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 12:54:47 -0000

I agree with Matthew in that Google Reader isn't leaps and bounds better than Bloglines. The only killer feature I see is the "mark items read as you scroll by" feature. That is the one that has made me switch to Google Reader, simply because when I read a feed like Digg in Bloglines, I feel compelled to scroll through the whole list, which is often 200 items long. In Google Reader, I can "commit" to reading that feed without worrying about only reading the first 10 or 20 posts and then moving on to another feed (the remaining 180-190 will be there next time I "commit"). I've written more about this over at my blog.

Re: Google Reader behind?

AndyBeard — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 12:54:45 -0000

Google Reader needs to give usage stats to services like Feedburner