Comments on: Comparing online newsreaders

By: Adding Netvibes to the mix…. | Moved by Freedom - Powered by Standards

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 14:28:03 +0000

[...] so long ago I had written about some online tools I’m using daily. I have to update my position on some aspects of what I had written earlier. I had first explained [...]

By: Charles

Charles — Sat, 03 May 2008 10:42:13 +0000

@brad:
Hey Brad, good to see you’re reading my blog!
Here’s my feedback about your plans. I’m very hapy you want to start working back on Blorq.
Now I am very wary of SilverLight, as it is not an open technology in any sense of the word, but I guess you were expecting this from my side… May I suggest plain old good web standards?

On a more positive note, here’s what I thought about the “social side” aspect of it. Using more microformats and carrying the concepts of Sets forward (I guess you already wanted to do that though) and with the inclusion of social features (microformats such as FOAF here once again) and perhaps even logging in through OpenID?

I’ ll be glad to bring my feedback even further, but as you know; this is the easiest part of the job..

Thanks for your input!

By: brad

brad — Fri, 02 May 2008 20:52:58 +0000

[I am the one and only guy behind blorq.com]

Thanks for the nice words Charles! Sorry the project slowed, i have been very busy lately and the html/css/js combo of technologies is not my focus anymore. I am thinking about building a silverlight version of blorq leveraging all the exisiting backend and i would love feedback on that.

By: libervisco

libervisco — Thu, 01 May 2008 22:26:55 +0000

Good points. I tried Netvibes briefly today, but yeah.. I don’t really like it either. Too much javascript in one place and each box is a bit too small.. overall just feels cluttered.

I’m probably gonna try one of those readers, probably starting with rojo.

Thanks

By: Charles

Charles — Thu, 01 May 2008 13:46:26 +0000

@Brad Neuberg:

Thank you for reading “Moved by Freedom, Powered by Standards” Brad!

I will definitely use the new Gears port to FF3. What happened when I used Gears was a general poor performance of Google Readers. I understand that Gears was also taking some time to sync with the feeds, but even after having completed the sync, GReader was painfully slow. I believe that on two occasions, Gears actually blocked the service. NB: I had at that time around 80 feeds (sources to be synced from) in the reader. Let me know if you wish to have my OPML (if that can be of any use).

Thanks!

By: Charles

Charles — Thu, 01 May 2008 13:38:19 +0000

libervisco,
I think you would definitely benefit from online newsreaders. The Firefox 3 SmartBookmarks actually make you use a newsreader, this one being Firefox. I’d say that it’s great if you only ever use Firefox (and what happens when you’re away without your computer? You get the point).

As for Netvibes, I simply don’t like these tools. I have been using one of its challengers, Bubbletop (www.bubbletop.com) in private beta some months ago, and toyed around with Netvibesn but for some reason I don’t like the concept. I don’t want to have to click so many times and have that compartimented view of my feeds. And besides, I was using Altavista in 1998, so thank you :p

Cheers!

By: libervisco

libervisco — Thu, 01 May 2008 12:40:03 +0000

Oh and btw, I forgot to mention it yet I actually intended to ask. Go figure What do you think about netvibes?

By: libervisco

libervisco — Thu, 01 May 2008 12:38:22 +0000

That’s a tough choice indeed. I never used any online readers and only on occasion tried some desktop readers, but I usually just go on site.

It looks like an interesting thing to try though, you piqued my interest a bit.. Might make it easy to check out lots more news in less time and staying up to date with a variety of interests is always good.

Although, I wonder if Firefox 3 smart bookmarks could do a comparably good job..

Cheers

By: Brad Neuberg

Brad Neuberg — Thu, 01 May 2008 00:58:38 +0000

Hi Charles, thanks for the nice comments on Rojo. I used to work there a few years ago. I still think Rojo’s social features, especially around recommended news, are unmatched by current aggregators. I now work for Google and for Gears, and am sorry the experience did not work great for you around Google Reader + Gears. Expect the Firefox 3 port of Gears soon. What happened for you around Reader + Gears in the past? How can we make it better?

Best,
Brad Neuberg
Gears
http://codinginparadise.org