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Moving Back to Feedly

Posted on by Saru

The word is out and there is no point brooding over it. Yes you heard it, Google will unplug the google reader service from July. Lets sulk it in and try to move on. After all how often have free services lived for eternity. What are we left with now? Just an OPML file I guess. 🙂

The options are not many, either we switch to an alternate RSS platform or to a desktop client. I am not quite sure if any of us really would want to switch to a desktop client after using google reader for years. The main feature of google reader is that you can access it from any where and any type of device. If you just want to use the opml (exported from Google reader) file with an aggregator the wiki page has a huge list of aggregators with a detailed comparison here, you can choose one that suits you. Almost every client mentioned in that list is a desktop client and hence you most likely will lose syncing.

What am I going to do?

I am going with Feedly. Well you ask, Feedly is a browser extension or an app that runs with Google reader in the backend for sync. Exactly, but not anymore. Their blog now reads that they were expecting the demise of Google reader and they have created their own backend. So when google reader is powered down, feedly’s backend servers will kickin and keep you in sync. Besides I was already their user till I switched to Reeder on my iphone. I like Feedly as well, you can read my review of feedly here. Just that I liked Reeder more on the iphone.Now that google reader will be killed I am curious to find out what direction Reeder will take, given Silvio says

To me its better to stay with the company I know, have used and trusted rather than try something totally new unless its Feedafever. So just start using Feedly and you wont even know if Google unplugged Reader, Feedly will take care of everything for you (hopefully with out a glitch) when reader is gone. If you aren’t convinced about Feedly yet, you can try other options mentioned here.

Feedly for IPhone

Posted on by Saru

I am an  avid Feedly user and have reviewed Feedly earlier here. There is no doubt in my mind that Feedly seems to be the best client for Digesting Feeds using Google reader. Since I also own an IPhone,  I recently gave Feedly for IPhone a try and here’s how I liked.

Given that  I already use the desktop version on my chrome, I knew how Feedly works and what features it has on the desktop, I had a little higher expectations from it from the mobile app.  Feedly does deliver on most of my expectations.

The Interface, the home screen  and the way the app behaves resemble the desktop version which is really nice and consistent.  The app syncs perfectly with your Google reader account and all your feeds are at your disposal for consumption.

Majority of the social features are present in the app, a few that are missing are to share on Delcious, Tumblr, Evernote, Linkedin etc which seemed to be the only expectation Feedly on the IPhone did not fulfill. The features like Instapaper, Readabilty, Read it later  are available in the latest app version.   Moving forward the remaining features from the desktop version should be available as well.

Feedly doesn’t yet have an offline feature implemented like Reeder, Which is the most popular feed reader for the IPhone. But if you have an Instapaper account like me, your offline issues could be solved partially.  Instapaper by Marco Arment is a great app as well, which I would really recommend you to try.  One can just glance through the feeds and select feeds required for offline reading and send them to Instapaper to read offline. If you are not looking for offline capability, Feedly would be the right app for your feed reader requirements. Feedly is also available for Android and IPad. Browse their homepage for your version.   How do you like Feedly for Iphone. Do you have any other app suggestions. I would love to hear from you.

UPDATE : As of May 3rd Feedly is available for Ipad and Android as well.

Feedly-Why its way better than Google Reader

Posted on by Saru

Google reader hasn’t been under much light these days, and I have to tell you, I just see the same screen day after day and it just feels so damn boring.  To cut down the boredom I tried the desktop client FeedDemon for quite some time before I got back to Feedly.  The last time when i tried Feedly 2 years back when i used Firefox with the extension. Feedly then was in its initial days with a very minimal features. Feedly was good but since i had just started using feed readers i was quite happy with Google Reader.  I’ve been using Feedly for some time now and this is what i think it’s good at.

For those who aren’t aware of what Feedly is. Briefly Feedly is a Feed reader addon (extension), which synchronizes with your Google reader to give you a better feed reading experience.

When compared with Google Reader, Feedly gives the feel of reading a Magazine, which is so much better than the Google Reader’s layout. When I mean Magazine, yeah it looks colorful with all those Images from your feeds with a gist of the post next to it. Besides that you get to view your posts in one of the many predefined page layouts like Latest or Popular or Quick glance to get a quick index of your feeds with unread counts.  Wanna look up something you read recently for a link, there’s the handy history section which allows you to see all the recent items you have read.

Feedly Page

Social Integration is the best part of Feedly. Besides Twitter and Facebook they do have quite a good number of Social sites like Tumblr, Posterous,Ping.fm, Evernote and Instapaper integrated right into it. That’s more than enough social integration for me personally. and the sharing is pretty seamless with out any hassles.

The other interesting feature is that your twitter time line is shown in a column on the right to keep you abreast with your social conversations. The cool part of the twitter integration is that the karma section throws a quick stat of the number of clicks or retweet’s of the articles you shared. Tracking a response of your tweets seems so much fun; probably this is what they mean by measuring influence using social media. The layout is precise that twitter is not distractive, and gives you the right balance between your feeds and the twitter streamline.

Feedly in all has put user experience as their priority and have worked on the features in a focused manner.  Feedly does all that Google reader does and a lot more, only in a better way. The only down side of Feedly is that it requires you to have a Google Reader account. Feedly so far is the best feed reader that i would recommend for everyday use. Check Feedly for yourself. Here are the links for the addons for the respective browsers FireFox, Chrome and Safari. There are mobile versions of Feedly for Iphone, Ipad and Android, check their home page from your phone for a download.  BTW Feedly for Safari is still in its initial stages, Not that there are issues, just thought you should know.