Google Reader Lagging in RSS Market
LeeAnn Prescott at Hitwise takes a look at the Web-based RSS market and finds that Google Reader is gaining market share but lagging far behind the leader, Bloglines. According to Hitwise, Google Reader has only one-thirteenth the market share of Bloglines, and it is well below Rojo and slightly below Newsgator as well. Google doesn't release its usage stats through Feedburner, so it's difficult to get a complete picture of how well or poorly the app is doing. I think with Google Reader, as with Google Finance, Google concentrated too much on cutting-edge technology and not on usability, which is ironic given that it surely meant for the nifty AJAX to make everything easier on the user. I switched to Google Reader a few weeks ago, and I can safely say there's no incentive for anyone to make the switch. Bloglines is faster. |
Comments (5)
Bloglines is unusable
google reader is cool, it tag item as read while you scroll, has stats, and can parse a random page and generate a feed even if there isn't the rss for that page.
on bloglines if You close the page while you are at the half of the page you loose all the news.
I've 205 feeds and actually google reader is the best feed reader for an rss addicted like me :)
Posted by Marco | January 19, 2007 12:34 PM
Marco, how do make GR generate a feed for a site that doesnt have one????
to Steve Bryant, GR is really good. I tried bloglines once, and could get into it. didnt even found the (keyboard) shortcuts.
GR only lacks a couple of things: a search engine, and the ability to change a lable name.
Posted by BUGabundo | January 19, 2007 1:11 PM
@Bugabundo
I just put the url of the site into "Add Subscription"
Posted by Marco | January 19, 2007 1:48 PM
I disagree with both the point that "there's no incentive for anyone to make the switch" and that "Bloglines is unusable." Bloglines is an excellent web-based feed reader. I used it for over a year before making the switch recently to Google Reader. Google Reader's "mark read as you scroll by" feature is the Bloglines killer. If you spend a little time setting up Google Reader to your liking, you'll see why it's better. Google Reader isn't flawless, though, and I've shared some thoughts on the matter.
Posted by Bernie Zimmermann | January 20, 2007 12:45 PM
I disagree with both the point that "there's no incentive for anyone to make the switch" and that "Bloglines is unusable." Bloglines is an excellent web-based feed reader. I used it for over a year before making the switch recently to Google Reader. Google Reader's "mark read as you scroll by" feature is the Bloglines killer. If you spend a little time setting up Google Reader to your liking, you'll see why it's better. Google Reader isn't flawless, though, and I've shared some thoughts on the matter.
Posted by Bernie Zimmermann | January 20, 2007 12:46 PM