NewsGator Online v. Bloglines

I’ve been trying out NewsGator Online and comparing it to Bloglines.

First, the good:

1. It looks better… 2. It loads faster… 3. It seems to be updated more frequently…

than Bloglines.

The bad:

1. No favicon makes it hard to locate when using tabbed browsers. 2. Organizing subscriptions into folders is much easier using Bloglines (select subscriptions, click on Move to folder…). In NewsGator you must move each feed individually. 3. When reading a feed within a folder, marking all items as read will close the containing folder. To read the next feed inside the folder you must click on the folder to open it and select the feed. Awkward at best. 4. When clicked, posts open in the same window. They should open in a new window/tab so you can continue to check your subscriptions. 5. No Firefox integration. Bloglines’ Firefox integration is as good as it gets. 6. Folders containing subscriptions/feeds will close when you click on any feed. Why can’t folders stay open for easy access to their contents?

The I don’t know yet whether it’s good or bad:

1. When reading a feed you must either individually delete all posts or click on “Delete All Posts on This Page”. Otherwise the posts will stay there. Bloglines will consider all posts as read once you close the feed, only displaying new posts when you return to the feed. Bloglines lets you display all posts within your login session, 12 hours ago, a day ago, etc… in case you wish to see something old.

In bloglines you can click on a post to make it “sticky” so it won’t go away once you close the feed. I like this approach better because it requires the least amount of work from the user. You normally look at all new posts in a feed, open those that interest you in a new tab, once in a while keep a post you find interesting, and then move on to a new feed.

I suppose I could get used to clipping whatever interests me and deleting all posts before moving on to the next feed. But it’s a lot of unnecessary user input if you ask me.

All in all, NewsGator Online has lots of potential. In speed and looks it wins easily. Now if they would just address some minor UI issues… it’d rock.