Blog Feedreaders – Recommendations Needed
On this grey and rather windy Sunday I’ve been doing some clean up of the long list of blog sites I follow – not just for book stuff but other interests like genealogy and crafts. Problem is to keep up with all of these in a reasonable time frame which is where feedreader are enormously helpful. But I’ve yet to find a great one so I’m hoping a few of you with more experience than I have can come to my rescue.
I currently use two readers:
- one that is part of WordPress which I like in some ways because I can decide whether I want each new blog post sent immediately on publication or a weekly digest. i also like the fact I can get the alert coming into the email in basket so I can quickly decide do I want to do anything other than read it (such as like it or read comments, or add a comment). But it does clog up the email basket quickly. However I know I am not good at keeping up to date with the Reader Feed on wordpress itself and there is no way of marking which post I read. Nor can I find a way to put different blogs into categories so I could get one feed for book bloggers, another for publishers and another say for genealogy.
- Because WordPress can’t meet all my needs I created a Bloglovin account which fills in some of those gaps – it lets me put groups of topics together. But it’s not that user friendly. For one thing -I don’t like the fact the reader gives me only a few lines of the post and to read more I then have to click and then often to leave a comment click again. And then if I want to tweet this or include the url in a post I find it shows the bloglovin url rather than the actual url on the site. Very time wasting. The big problem however – and this is getting to me more than an irritation – Bloglovin does not like to work on my iPad. It keeps crashing no matter how many times I try uninstalling/reinstalling and then updating.
There has to be a better solution around – one that will work effectively with Apple products which is all I have (laptop, phone and tablet). I want a reader that is uncomplicated to use, gives me flexibility to manage feeds of different categories and from different blog host platforms) and is ideally free.
What do you all use – have you found an ideal solution? Please let me know before I lose all my hair and nails fretting about this.
I’m also a Feedly user. I use it on both Windows laptop and iOS phone. If you used Google Reader before, you will like it. The interface is simple and clean, but I think you can customize it..
I use Feedly too, again because I used to use Google Reader and Feedly offered an easy transfer service when Google Reader was discontinued. I know the Android app is good but I can’t tell you anything about the iOS app. It offers folders and labels and has a useful index page where you can see at a glance how many new posts there are in all the blogs you follow. I like it.
I’ll echo the Feedly suggestions – it seems like it has everything you’re missing with BlogLovin (I switched over from BlogLovin not too long ago). It lets you tweet right from Feedly and just includes the regular blog link.
I like that option to tweet correct – saves a lot of selecting/copying/pasting
Another Feedly user here. I love the Android mobile app, and it looks like they have one for iOS as well. Good luck finding reader that works for you!
Thanks Karen, always good to hear from someone actually using the tool. Will need to check out compatibility with IOS though
I just gave up on Bloglovin’ — they kept changing it to make it harder to use, and putting in more obtrusive ads, so goodbye. I’ve started using Feedly and I like it, but it’s free only for 100 sources or less. (Though I’ve seen some comments from people who say they have more than 100 sources and have never paid — go figure.) You can create different categories for your sources, and also mark whole batches of posts as read when you’ve gone through them.
Like Bryan, I also use Pocket for saving posts to comment on or refer back to for various reasons. It’s super easy to do and also to “tag” them to put them into categories.
I do all of this on a desktop only, so I’m not sure how it would work while mobile. I’ll have to try at some point.
Thanks for that recommendation re Feedly, Lory. If I had 100 blogs to follow I think I’d spend all day every day just responding and reading them so that limit isn’t going to be an issue for me. who on earth can follow that many sources????
I used GoogleReader for a couple of years and then, when they announced it would disappear, they recommended Feedly, which is how I ended up there.
And I defiinitely have more than 100 feeds, so I wonder if there was a window in which users could switch and have different access to features (rather like LibraryThing was free for awhile after GoodReads was bought out by Amazon)?
Anyway, I don’t make use of many of the organizational features it offers, but I do have folders/filters and find that alone’s very helpful. I would go mad having to manage the whole thing with emails.
I am a poor person to ask I have been embarrassingly, shamefully, negligent in my blog visiting. It’s a goal to get back into the swing of things. Be that as it may, I do use Blog Lovin’ with all its quirks and foibles.
It takes a lot of time to visit blogs and comment so with everything else you have going on I’m not surprised this fell between the cracks a bit
Thank you for understanding. xo
I know this sounds like I am way down the technology chain but I just link the ten or so blogs I like to read the best onto blogger and they show up on the side of blog page so I can see when they have a new post. I still go and look at other groups like the blogger page for Friends but this is my best way to follow the blogs I don’t want to miss. I hate it when i get emails because I just can’t keep up on my work and family emails alone and it feels like an intrusion so I just stay simple.
My Sunday Slon post
Sometimes the simplest approaches work the best Anne
I had the same problem although I find if I like the post on the reader on WP I can see which ones I’ve read, but as you say you can’t group them. I now make sure I get emailed many of the blogs I read daily but wish I’d set up a separate email account for blogging as I so often miss other emails as it does get clogged up quickly.
You can use a filter to filter them into another folder/mailbox – most email systems have that.
I did float with a separate email account but then its yet another thing to manage and password to remember…..
I tend to ignore the feed because I always forget to check it – plus if you follow anyone on a different platform to WP it’s no good. So like Lisa I subscribe by email and read them when I have a minute!
I think for non WP feeds you have to get it to come into the email anyway so it makes the feed redundant
I am in the same boat. I will watch the comments to (hopefully) learn some helpful tips!
I have an old blogger account too, and it would be easy to use that. However, I don’t want to use it to comment as I want people to know who I really am and to perhaps visit me (I’m greedy that way) if they’re interested in what I say. That’s how I’ve found many of the blogs I follow. If I comment with my blogger account they don’t get to find me.
I have that same issue when I have to comment using disqus….
Looks like people either take the option of reading via an email alert or use Feedly. so maybe one of those options will work for you Molly
I’ll follow this closely. I was quite happy with bloglovin, but when I got a new iPad, everthing was nicely synchronised with the old one – except my feeds. I have no problem commenting on blogger, as I have an old blogger-account.
I started out thinking bloglovin was great but for the past year it seems to have gone down hill
I use Feedly, too. Works well for me.
Seems it has a lot of fans here Joy
Have you tried Feedly? That’s what I use. It’s not perfect, but it’s what works for me, because then I save posts to another application called Pocket where I can read the posts easily and comment from Notepad (copy and paste). I use the free version and have no problems, but I’m not sure how it would work on an iPad. Can’t hurt to try, though.
Think I’ve heard of it Bryan but not investigated – thanks of the tip
I have Pocket on the iPad but don’t use it. Just another place I have to remember to go to to find stuff. This is the thing. I want fewer places to go to not a proliferation.
PS Yes, Blogger blogs are a lost cause. You can’t comment on them anyway, so I don’t subscribe to them.
I don’t use a reader at all. I subscribe to blogs by email, they come politely into my inbox and I read them as and when I feel like it.
seems like a good plan…..
I do what she does! I’ve tried feeds – like bloglovin and I automatically have the WP one of course – but I just don’t use them. I always check my emails and so it’s a one stop shop in that sense. I have my blog posts all filtered to a specific folder and so after I’ve checked personal/business emails, I got to that folder. It can get overloaded but then I use sorting to work through them – e.g. sort on FROM to look at the posts of a recent blogger, or on Subject to get all the comments on a post together. It works well enough. I don’t subscribe to many blogs that AREN’T lit ones but those that I do just have to mix in. However, I could set up filter rules to feed them into different folders if I had that many in different subject areas.
I can comment on Blogger Blogs, I’m not sure what you all mean by not being able to? What frustrates me is that they don’t make it easy to subscribe to comments, and if I comment I like to know if the blogger has replied. With blogger blogs I just end up being rude and not knowing if they’ve responded in a way that I’d like to acknowledge, as I can’t go back checking them all on the off-chance – and there are a few I follow. They seem to have different comment plug-ins so one will behave one way and another another.
Hm I will need to look into this filtering of emails so i can more easily see the really interesting stuff amid all the crap from retailers etc.
I seem to get responses from comments on blogger posts if I use Disqus but I don’t really like doing that much because its yet another subscription to manage
Yes, you’re right, but like you I don’t like to come in that way. I did join Disqus once but enough already! A couple of blogger blogs I know have other plug-ins but I don’t know what they are.
Yes, do look at filtering – some email programs call them “rules” so you set up a rule to say any email from X (or to X or with X as a subject – there are various options) do Y (which might be “move to Z folder”). For my blog folder I have one Rule with multiple parameters. I’ve done this with Entourage, Outlook and Apple Mail so I’m sure most email systems offer the facility.
I do what Lisa and Sue do – subscribe by email (I’ve even asked a few bloggers to add the widget for that!). I use Mozilla Thunderbird to filter them to different folers. I’ve even opened a different gmail account to subscribe to books blogs, so everything that comes to that address is lit-related and I get to it when I can.
Yes, I’ve made the same request, and yes, I use similar filters for my bookish email.
But my gmail account is only for ads. I use it for anything I buy or have to supply an email address for. Then when the email comes into that folder I scan it quickly to make sure there’s nothing important and then SELECT ALL/DELETE. Quick and easy!
I don’t have a better solution I’m afraid. I think I must miss lots ☹
maybe you’ll find someone else comments here that gives you the way forward too
I use the WP app on my iPhone. You can leave comments, reply to comments, like posts and read all the WP blogs you follow in one spot. Of course, it means you can’t follow blogger blogs, but I find I can’t comment on those anyway…
Thanks Kim – I struggle with using my phone because my typing is so poor with the small keyboard. Yes some host sites are more challenging. I hate blogs which also ask me to complete too many security stages before the post goes live