Slashdot Mirror

Over the past few months, we've watched users steadily switch away from Netscape and Internet Explorer to Firefox. Back in July, while Firefox was still in beta, it had grown to over 5% of our traffic. Today, Firefox represents 20% of requests to Bloglines.

Bloglines.com is actually a neat way to get new RSS feeds.

It's basically a web RSS viewer. Add or Import (OPML) all your feeds in, and you can view them from anywhere. But the cool thing is that it will recommend other RSS feeds based on what you (and others) are subscribed too. It's very good, and I've found lots of useful feeds from it.

It's free, no ads, has import/export (no lock in), etc.

Altercation (what liberal media?)

Here are some blogs I like that are often political, but not stupidly partisan, such as:

• The Volokh Conspiracy -- mostly libertarian law professors
• Marginal Revolution -- a couple of economists, one of whom also posts at The Volokh Conspiracy
• Daniel Drezner-- a political scientist
• Foreign Dispatches--a Nigerian-American programmer with many interesting perspectives.
• ParaPundit--some random bloke named Randall Parker, a computer programmer, I think.

In case you haven't heard, BlogLines is a great way to read blogs online.

it changes every hour who has the best scoop: blogsnow or bloglines do the work for you and see what's worth looking at.

bloglines.com is an excellent replacement for your desktop RSS newsfeed aggregator. Once I started using it, I was hooked. Those desktop aggregators waste RAM, network bandwidth, and constantly bug you when there are new feed items to read. the online replacement is a definite improvement. they also have a notifier popup window via web or downloadable app for your OS if you simply must be informed of new items.

I could keep raving about why it's better, but you should just try it :)

I haven't tried Fastbuzz yet, but I have been using bloglines for a while and love it.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this, but Bloglines is one of my favorite web applications. It's an online RSS/Atom aggregator in a simple, ad-free interface.

If you don't use one computer all the time and you want to check your feeds from other places, I'd recommend going with a web-based news-agreggation service. I personally use BlogLines, but there are other services out there as well.

Bloglines avoids this problem completely by only fetching a feed once per iteration, regardless of the number of subscribers. We're also able to provide subscriber stats to feed publishers, something that you can't do with desktop aggregators. And no messy software to install.

Bloglines has a web-based interface, but makes sense if you will be using several different computers at different times. Unless RSS feeds develop an IMAP-like protocol, I will not be willing to download all my 100+ subscriptions once for every computer I use.

You may not appreciate using a web interface, but give it a try. In short, the benefits are:

• Automatically synchronized subscription list
• Consistent interface on all platforms
• Availability on any platform with a web browser
• Easy keyword searching for new feeds
• Free (beer)
• Read the news just once
• OPML import and export

Balanced against

• Web interface is relatively slow, but you can download a platform-native notifier (available for Windows, Mac OS X, Konfabulator, KDE, Mozilla/Firefox, and Web)
• Not Free (speech)

Bloglines recently introduced a few new features, such as the ability to publish your own blog with them, but I think Wordpress or Typepad is better suited to that. No harm checking out their About page, anyway.

Bloglines has a web-based interface, but makes sense if you will be using several different computers at different times. Unless RSS feeds develop an IMAP-like protocol, I will not be willing to download all my 100+ subscriptions once for every computer I use.

You may not appreciate using a web interface, but give it a try. In short, the benefits are:

• Automatically synchronized subscription list
• Consistent interface on all platforms
• Availability on any platform with a web browser
• Easy keyword searching for new feeds
• Free (beer)
• Read the news just once
• OPML import and export

Balanced against

• Web interface is relatively slow, but you can download a platform-native notifier (available for Windows, Mac OS X, Konfabulator, KDE, Mozilla/Firefox, and Web)
• Not Free (speech)

Bloglines recently introduced a few new features, such as the ability to publish your own blog with them, but I think Wordpress or Typepad is better suited to that. No harm checking out their About page, anyway.

Bloglines has a web-based interface, but makes sense if you will be using several different computers at different times. Unless RSS feeds develop an IMAP-like protocol, I will not be willing to download all my 100+ subscriptions once for every computer I use.

You may not appreciate using a web interface, but give it a try. In short, the benefits are:

• Automatically synchronized subscription list
• Consistent interface on all platforms
• Availability on any platform with a web browser
• Easy keyword searching for new feeds
• Free (beer)
• Read the news just once
• OPML import and export

Balanced against

• Web interface is relatively slow, but you can download a platform-native notifier (available for Windows, Mac OS X, Konfabulator, KDE, Mozilla/Firefox, and Web)
• Not Free (speech)

Bloglines recently introduced a few new features, such as the ability to publish your own blog with them, but I think Wordpress or Typepad is better suited to that. No harm checking out their About page, anyway.

And as a cherry on top, they have apps for all 3 major OS's that work with the website to notify you of updates when you're not using your browser. I don't personally use these helper apps though, so I can't vouch for them.

In summation: you should check it out, it's great!

Bloglines

It's a great reader. And always with me there, where I have an Internet connection.

I am not a blogger but I have been a reader of weblogs for a while now, (I have used many aggregators and have settled on Bloglines a web-based aggregator that is awesome with a tabbing browser like Firefox.) I have been following the Atom/RSS dispute for a while but have never seen the answer to the following question: What does this syndication war mean to me as an end user?

A few others in this thread have asked a similar question but the answer always seems to do with how its beneficial to the blogger or content provider. Now this is important of course but as a geek I have learned to be wary of such arguments, the first time I fell for it I ended up with blinking text in my browser. Maybe I'm too cynical but I'm comfortable being cautious and indeed a little skeptical of the latest and greatest technological innovations.

That being said: What will Atom do for me, Joe Blogreader, that the defacto standard RSS does not? Feeds and aggregators have changed how I use the net, my bookmarks menu has shrunk significantly and I'm on fewer mailing lists. What does Atom have to offer ME that I should bug my content providers to offer Atom feeds in addition to or in place of RSS?

It could be your RSS aggregator and I know wired.com doesn't put the full text of their stories in the feeds. A lot of sites do, however. If you want an idea of the kind of sites that are using RSS check out my Bloglines subscriptions or this list of the top 100 feeds.

Uhhh, don't those sites just use RSS? How are they an alternative to RSS, aside from limiting which feeds you read? If you like them because they're web based, there are plenty of web based RSS readers like Bloglines. As for the whole "ad-free" thing, you're right people will find a way to make money on RSS. But at the same time, there will always be ad-free sites out there, and I suspect a lot of the sites using RSS right now without ads will continue to do so.

You must be reading the wrong stories about RSS. It doesn't basically serve up headlines, it basically serves up a diff of the web since you last looked at it. That's probably the best way of describing just how powerful it really is.

Take my Bloglines feeds for example. There's no way I could keep track of 100+ sites continuously without RSS. It gives me full text of updates for most sites (Slashdot, of course, is broken) that I read when I want to know what's new.

And most RSS readers support HTML/CSS. Images too. Just so you know, so the next time you bash RSS you can do it with a little information behind you.

Also, the bandwidth concerns are minimal for RSS aggregators that support 304 Modified headers, ETags, and If-Modified-Since headers. And I predict that by the end of the year the community will make a common practice of banning those aggregators that don't support them.

As for the Spam angle, I think you mis-read the article. RSS won't end Spam, it will provide people who use email for legitimate broadcast reasons (email newsletters, etc) to get around Spam blockers. And people will prefer this method because they know they can unsubscribe at any time.

Seriously though, RSS is like TiVo for the web. You hear a lot of zealots talk about how cool it is, when it's obvious from their description that it's nothing special. Then, when you try it (like with Bloglines, the free aggregator I use) you realize just how powerful and revolutionary it is.

You must be reading the wrong stories about RSS. It doesn't basically serve up headlines, it basically serves up a diff of the web since you last looked at it. That's probably the best way of describing just how powerful it really is.

Take my Bloglines feeds for example. There's no way I could keep track of 100+ sites continuously without RSS. It gives me full text of updates for most sites (Slashdot, of course, is broken) that I read when I want to know what's new.

And most RSS readers support HTML/CSS. Images too. Just so you know, so the next time you bash RSS you can do it with a little information behind you.

Also, the bandwidth concerns are minimal for RSS aggregators that support 304 Modified headers, ETags, and If-Modified-Since headers. And I predict that by the end of the year the community will make a common practice of banning those aggregators that don't support them.

As for the Spam angle, I think you mis-read the article. RSS won't end Spam, it will provide people who use email for legitimate broadcast reasons (email newsletters, etc) to get around Spam blockers. And people will prefer this method because they know they can unsubscribe at any time.

Seriously though, RSS is like TiVo for the web. You hear a lot of zealots talk about how cool it is, when it's obvious from their description that it's nothing special. Then, when you try it (like with Bloglines, the free aggregator I use) you realize just how powerful and revolutionary it is.

Use Bloglines.

It's online, free and includes a host of other features such as exportable subscriptions, disposable email addresses, etc.

If you're looking for a stable, well performing reader that is host based, meaning you don't have to move your config files and pointers, check out Bloglines.

Developed by the same person who started Egroups, Bloglines offers the ability to manage your feeds through a simple interface available anywhere.

The power also includes:

1) Disposable email addresses.
2) Sharing of your feeds.
3) Exporting of feeds.
4) Routing email to your account.

A great, free service.

If anyone wants to watch the Wikipedia Recent Announcements page automatically, feel free to point your favorite news aggregator to Wikipedia Recent Announcements RSS Feed which I generate from the web page. If you use Bloglines, click here for a preview or to subscribe.

Our web-based aggregator, Bloglines, is an easy way to try out aggregation. No need to download and install a program. We have a search engine and a list of top RSS feeds to make finding syndicated content easier. See http://www.bloglines.com for more info.