martinlittle.com:thinkThin

I was looking for a solution to my P800 RSS reading activites -- or actually some answers to 'is it practical'? I kicked off on the basis that I didn't want to pull huge feeds of data over my GPRS connection when, in reality, I often read the short entry, but not the full article. So, finding some kind of online aggregator that I could use via Opera seemed to make sense.

I'd read in an Online Journalism Review article about a few different options, and I found a few more. As I was putting together some kind of comparison, I realised a primary/secondary potential target market for this -- newbies! So, here's a quick rundown on my findings, in alphabetical order. My key criteria boiled down to ease of use, in terms of both setup (adding feeds) & daily and responsiveness of the site. All of the sites I checked are currently free, although I would fully expect them to start charging/asking for donations at some point.

None of the sites I reviewed really worked on my phone, though. I have no doubt that that will change over time. If you're just looking for the outcome of my findings it is thus: use Bloglines. The tool is simple, yet powerful enough for most users. To see how it works, just click here and you can see my setup.

Bloglines - http://www.bloglines.com/

Setup

Adding feeds either by entering a URI directly or importing an OPML feed worked superbly. Gathering related feeds together into folders is a point and click operation that works in a nice straightforward manner.

Daily use

The total number of new article is presented at folder level. Clicking on the folder name displays all articles associated with the feeds in the folder in one long listing. Expanding the folder by using the + allows individual feeds to be viewed. Items can be bookmarked, and then appear in the system bookmark folder. For each article, as much detail as the feed provides is displayed. The layout is good, allowing articles to be easily read.

Responsiveness

The site was speedy throughout.

Gripes

The two pain points I found were that feeds are only updated once an hour, and the top frame which says Bloglines is MASSIVE, taking up way too much screen real estate. I dropped them a note, and Mark Fletcher assured me it was one of their priorities to change, and that it should be visible in the next week or so. I'm going to see what they say about the hourly gathering. Perhaps after some time regularly updated feeds can be identified and updated more often.

Summary

I would recommend this site over all of the others listed here. It is nicely designed and does its job well. It is suitable for beginners and advanced users alike. View my setup here.

feed-me.info - http://feed-me.info/

Setup

Setup initially confused me (I didn't add a view), but after that I was able to import my OPML file. Groupings set up within the OPML file were ignored, and I was back to setting up views.

Daily use

I ended up with some very very long pages, making the whole process rather slow, as well as very hard to read. Full items were displayed in a page-wide, long list manner. Items can be added to a bookmark folder, rated (questionable functionality), emailed or printed from the article display.

Responsiveness

The site seemed to be slower than others, and given the huge pages I ended up with, this likely added to the problem.

Gripes

Again, this seems like beta software. It didn't seem very happy with me using Mozilla Firebird.

Summary

Just not quite there.

freshnews.org - http://www.freshnews.org/

Setup

Can't add specific RSS locations or upload OPML.

Daily use

All news presented on one page, in small boxes. Colours can be themed.

Responsiveness

Fast enough.

Gripes

The number of feeds available is heavily limited.

Summary

This is a nice site for reading a limited amount of tech news. Seems like a personal project which has been shared out to the world.

Fyuze - http://fyuze.com/

Setup

Didn't seem to want to find any URIs entered directly, and no OPML import.

Daily use

Box-like structure. Article headings only -- no content.

Responsiveness

Fine.

Gripes

Any gripes I had have to be tempered with the clearly labelled beta release of this aggregator.

Summary

This is very much a work-in-progress, which will be worth revisiting again. The ability to link into Yahoo! Groups is neat ... but didn't work when I tried it.

MyWireService - http://www.mywireservice.com/

Setup

RSS feeds could be easily added. My OPML file just would not upload, though. No error or problem, just no joy.

Daily use

I didn't quite 'get' the interface, and I couldn't be bothered to enter a stack of feeds after my OPML was rejected.

Responsiveness

Fine.

Gripes

Site seemed cluttered and overly complicated, plus OPML import didn't work.

Summary

Could well be a runner in a while, but not now.

NewsIsFree - http://www.newsisfree.com/

Setup

NewsIsFree is one of the big news syndication sites. Adding feeds is done using their IDs, as opposed to simply entering an RSS URI. OPML was not on the cards.

Daily use

The site seems to use the least readable format possible -- items are displayed in full, but in a kind-of boxed style. This means a blog with multiple entries displays as about three inches wide, but the entire length of the page. Feeds are grouped by page.

Responsiveness

Fine

Gripes

No OPML import.

Summary

Not the most intuitive site to use and hard to read entries.

NewsLine - http://www.intersmash.com/newsline/

Setup

Easy to add RSS feeds. No OPML import.

Daily use

This site simply displays the entire RSS feed in a nicely formatted way. There is no way to mark items as read, or bookmark them.

Responsiveness

Fine

Gripes

This site is clearly positioning itself as a beginners site, and it works fairly well at that.

Summary

A basic site, with nothing too exciting, but it works.