Remember a while ago when I was indignant about RSS readers? Well, Google just updated their Reader and it’s incredibly good. When Google Reader first came out, its interface was incredibly disappointing. They just didn’t capture my reading experience, but this new iteration hits it squarely on the head. Meanwhile, although Bloglines just rolled out a cute, new AJAXy navigation pane, it continues to disappoint with its constant bugginess and my inability to get them addressed. (Hey, guys, your feedback/communication system sucks ass. Fix it.)
Bloglines has “Keep New”, which I use to mark items I want to come back and read later. Google Reader has the same “stars” system found in Gmail, which is actually nicer because then they’re all displayed at together as a single group. Overall, the new user interface is very Gmail-like, but is still focused on displaying real content inline (unlike Gmail, which annoys me). My OPML from Bloglines imported perfectly into Google Reader including all of my folders, and my only gripe about its organization is that it seems to be alphabetical and in Bloglines I could set it arbitrarily. Another nice feature is that Google Reader automatically marks articles as read as you scroll through them and not just when you open them, which is great for me: I often open a bunch of articles in Bloglines at home, forget to read them, and then they’re gone when I get to work.
Now the only issue is going to be the constant fighting between my girlfriend and me about who is logged into Google. If only we could have different contexts for different tabs within the same browser instance.