I’ve recently started trying out Google Reader for my rss reading needs.
Until now (and for quite a long time, too) I’ve been using News Gator for that purpose. Together with the Mac desktop client –NetNewsWire– It has been my platform of choice because of it’s seamless integration with the desktop client, it’s mobile interface (which I think is pretty good) and, especially, the ability to synchronize status across multiple readers (yes, even multiple desktop readers).
At a time when I routinely used my iBook laptop, my iMac at the home desktop and my Linux laptop at the office (using the web interface) this made sense. Nowadays I find myself reading more and more online (via the web interface) or on my phone, but rarely do I fire up any of the NNWs on any of the Macs.
So I decided to try out the big G for yet another one of my on-line activities (seeing as it is already the keeper of most of my wired life’s information anyhow).
And the result (not unexpectedly) is that I am now ready to start dropping things from News Gator and start reading them solely on Google Reader.
The only thing that still keeps me from ditching News Gator entirely is the way that the G (doesn’t) handle private (i.e. authenticated) feeds. It has been pointed out to me that there are services out there that deal with this issue, but I’m not the least bit comfortable with having my credentials stored in some mom-and-pop web shop somewhere, so I’ll keep the private feeds safely within News Gator for a while until I come up with something I like better.
And now for the ironic part: why am I writing this now, instead of reading my feeds before lunch? Well, because Google Reader is not working! Ta-dahhh! Feeeeed meeeeeee! :-)