halfacanuck: Bloglines

December 06, 2004 - 08:04 PM

Bloglines

So I just rediscovered Bloglines. I say "rediscovered" because I've been aware of it for a while, but didn't really grasp how cool it is until I checked it out again this afternoon (or, possibly, the really nifty stuff has been added since I last looked).

Bloglines is an online web syndication (or "feed") browser. What this means, essentially, is that certain sites (blogs in particular, but also some news services etc.) allow their content to be accessed and republished by outside parties via special interfaces called RSS and Atom. In other words, when you set up an account (for free) on Bloglines you tell it what sites you like to read every day and, if that site has an RSS or Atom feed, Bloglines will trot off and grab the content from that site and display it to you within the Bloglines site itself.

Why is this useful, or even any different from visiting the web site itself?

Well, the difference is that Bloglines has a little sidebar with a list of all the sites you've subscribed to and -- here's where it gets cool -- it knows whether the site has been updated since you last visited it and, if so, how many new posts (or news stories, or other pieces of content) there are. Thus instead of going through a dozen bookmarks to check if any of them have anything new to read, you simply go to your Bloglines page and can see at a glance if there's been an update. Think of it as a bit like email, only with web sites.

If that's all there was to it I'd not be particularly excited about it (yes, I'm excited about it. Snide comments welcome). That's how RSS and Atom work, and I've been using a similar standalone program called NetNewsWire Lite to read feeds for ages. What makes Bloglines so damn cool is that unlike NetNewsWire Lite it's able to read not just RSS and Atom feeds but also pages from Xanga, LiveJournal, the new Google Groups 2 service, Yahoo! Groups, Topix.net and can even pretend that an email mailing list is a feed too, showing it along with the "real" feeds in the sidebar.

This means that I can check every single site I read on a regular basis, from Reuters headlines to a bunch of blogs (including, finally, Xanga) in one place and without having to check each manually to see if there's anything new, saving me vital seconds every day. If that doesn't deserve a w00t I don't know what does.

Go out and sign up for Bloglines immediately, and then of course add my blog to your subscriptions. Because it's what all the cool people do.

Yes, I'm a nerd.

Comments and trackbacks

Here are the erudite, piercing and profoundly arousing comments and trackbacks left so far by my alert readers regarding this entry (you too can make me tumescent by leaving a comment of your own):

Ross, it's not so much that you're a geek. Well, yes it is. But, more to the point, where do you find the time?

Davey – December 6, 2004 10:20 PM

Like Margaret Thatcher, Bill Clinton and Leonardo da Vinci I sleep only four hours a night. Also, I'm unemployed. (Also, I lied about the first bit.)

Ross Thomas – December 7, 2004 03:03 AM

Funny you should mention it. I added you to my Bloglines subscription last week, and I found out about your article on Bloglines through Bloglines. Yeehaah.

Jordan – December 7, 2004 08:03 AM

Haha. I'd say that also requires a w00t.

Ross Thomas – December 7, 2004 08:24 AM

It's true, you learn something new everyday.

Thanks for giving me something to divert me from real work.

Madison McGraw – December 7, 2004 12:10 PM

Done and done. Thanks for the recommendation - I've been thinking for a while that I should take the leap and use an aggregator instead of checking a dozen or so sites every day, but lacked the time to do the research myself (too busy checking all those sites for new postings, of course).

Now, what am I going to do with the extra 47 seconds a day?

sxKitten – December 7, 2004 01:31 PM

I think Bloglines is great. Does that mean I can call myself a geek too? ;)

Ariel – December 7, 2004 03:38 PM

OK, I'm going to have to go look at this Bloglines thing now, which, based on your description, I anticipate as the next stage in my evolution as a geek. Or nerd. I'm not sure.

Edited By Siteowner

Sisyphus75 – December 8, 2004 07:54 AM

Have you started paying off your US$30m fine for impersonating a Canadian? You know, from your Sf trip. Any pictures of the female cop who busted you. I heard it was a nice bust...wink wink nod nod

Steve – December 8, 2004 07:21 PM

I've been slow on the uptake, reading dozens f blogs daily the old-fashioned way - on cuneiform tablets, using kerosene lanterns.

But I recently went looking for the miracle answers among feedreaders.

Without actually checking and the trial&error approach, I simply started reading other people's reviews. It didn't take long to see that among online or desktop readers, Bloglines would be in anyone's top 5 list.

But have you tried others, like Kinja? I'd like to narrow my list to two before building up my reader list, so any input you have would be appreciated. Send it in Babylonian on the clay tablets, please.

Kevin Hayden – December 11, 2004 02:24 PM

I must admit I've never tried any others, and probably should. Bloglines satiates my nerdy lust right now, but when I have a spare moment I'll check out some more...

Ross Thomas – December 11, 2004 03:07 PM