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01.24.08
Top Feed Readers For Serious Readers
 By
Dustin Brewer
I consider myself one of those people that monitor 100s of RSS feeds daily and actually read a large portion of the articles I see a day.
So when it comes to using a feed reader, you need it to be very good at what it does. At one point I used Opera's built-in reader but with the amount of feeds I had it wasn't running very fast and so I ditched it. Firefox is the same way, I can't use their live bookmarks or feed reader extensions because I already bog it down too much with extensions.
I've gone through all of the RSS feed readers I can find online, I can't use the feed readers that are local software because I need to be able to access my feeds from work, home and on the go with my Treo. It is also handy for when I am using my laptop at Coffee shops and Cafes. So using an online-based service is paramount to me when it comes to making a decision for RSS and Atom feed readers. So here is my list of my favorite online feed readers.
The 5 best online RSS feed readers
#1 Google Reader
This one is a given to me because of its simplicity, you don't want to over complicate your feed reading experience and Google reader does a good job of making sure reading your news is as simple as possible. With Google Reader you can categorize your feeds with folders so you are seperating out the different types of feeds you follow. This is helpful when you are or aren't in a certain mood for articles. I have several different categories such as SEO, Design, CSS, Blogging and others. There are also keyboard shortcuts you can use with Google reader to make browsing easier. As a side note, Google Reader is very easy to use on your mobile phone- a big plus in my book. Google Reader allows you to export and import using OPML so you can transfer your RSS feeds between services.
#2 Bloglines
This service is always popular, a lot of people like the way in which it presents feeds. I myself am not a huge fan of the way it does this. However, this service has a fantastic sorting capability and is great on mobile phones for those of us on the go. It also supports OPML which allows you to export and import your RSS feeds between services.
#3 Rojo
This is one of my favorite RSS feed readers to play with, and will be a lot of fun to mess around with more in the future. This RSS readers adds a lot of social media aspects to its lineup. The more "Mojo" you give an article the better the chance it is that the article will rise to the front page of Rojo. This service is extremely simple and is a digg-like, reddit-like kinda RSS reader. This RSS service also support OPML so you can import and export all of your feeds from and to other services. This one may move up the ranks for me in the future. I haven't had a chance to test it mobile yet.
#4 Newsgator
This service has been around the longest, i think, and has some great features when it comes to reading RSS feeds. One of the coolest features of this service is its ability to let you comment on an article or feed. This service allows you to organize your feeds just as easily, a little more complicated then some of the others but still an excellent service.
#5 feedshow
This feed reading has a lot of options and it looks a lot like a Windows Explorer folder when you are navigating through the service. Some have said it has an intuitive interface, I'm not one of them. I am not a huge fan of the way you manage your feeds. But this service is still excellent and can be a good way to read your feeds online if you like the way you manage them through this service. One of the best features about this is that it allows you to save feeds as PDF files, so you can read them offline later or even print them off. For those of you paper junkies, this feature is probably a win.
No matter how you read RSS, good content is paramount
I have hundreds of feeds in my Google Reader and Bloglines accounts, all of which I scan through and read a large portion of the articles. The best thing you can do when you have this many feeds is to separate them out into categories to ensure maximum readability and findability (not a word). Now that you know which readers are the best, take your time to subscribe to my RSS feed in your favorite reader or subscribe to it so you can test out some of these great feed readers.
Let me know in the comments if you have found an online feed reader better then the ones listed here, or if you have a favorite feature in one of these readers that everyone should know about.
Comments
About the Author:
Dustin Brewer is a web designer located in Oklahoma City, OK specializing in aesthetics in design, web standards, accessibility and usability. He also enjoys helping others to discover CSS and web design best practices through his web site, dustin brewer, a web design news site.
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