IвЂ™d like to see the favicons for each feed (Bloglines used to do this badly, but does much better now). I want OPML import to preserve the order in the OPML file (Reader sorts feeds alphabetically instead). Or at least the ones that happened to have new items when I was grabbing screenshots. Ready for the Easter Egg? If you study the pictures above, you can reconstruct many of the feeds I check regularly. A folder in BloglinesвЂ™ OPML is preserved when you import it into Reader. Both products let you export your feeds as an OPML file.

ReaderвЂ™s latency to find new items in a feed is at least as good as Bloglines right now, and it wouldnвЂ™t surprise me if Reader gets even faster at finding new items in the future.

If a serious Google bug is mentioned in the blogosphere, I want to find out about that *now*, not in a few hours. IвЂ™d rather read 41 new items than 41 new items and 43 things IвЂ™ve already seen. Right now, Bloglines is telling me that I have 84 unread items and Reader says 41. рџ™‚ Given the number of people who think itвЂ™s cute to include a current timestamp or a random fortune cookie blurb in their feed items, I prefer the latter choice. With Google Reader, once youвЂ™ve read an item, it stays read. With Bloglines youвЂ™ll know that if an item changes in any way, youвЂ™ll find out. (Yes, IвЂ™ve tried to get the Google News team to bend over backwards so that Bloglines wonвЂ™t show items in the Google News alert feed as new. And if you subscribe to a Google News feed (say, for the search вЂњMatt CuttsвЂќ), Bloglines keeps showing the same articles as new. ItвЂ™s not! I just changed one word! The SEW articles feed has this issue. Google Reader doesnвЂ™t have this issue.ДЄs far as I can tell, if you change even a single character in a post, Bloglines will say that the post is brand-new. There have been feeds that I have unsubscribed from in the past because of this. It updates several times a day on Bloglines, even when the main site only has one new article per day. It is the most annoying feed on my RSS feeds list. I absolutely hate the Search Engine Watch (main site) RSS feed. This was a clear win for Reader in my book. So I did a pretty in-depth evaluation for my needs. The new version also has an ultra-compact list view that reminds me of Gmail. рџ™‚ The usage of space was also much better, as you can see in this picture: The biggest change is that I could control which feeds to read, so I could browse Blackhat SEO feeds when I wanted to. A few weeks ago, I started playing with the pre-release version of Reader and I really liked what I saw. There were a few other things I didnвЂ™t like in the original Google Reader and I never switched.ДЇast-forward a few months. Check out this view of Bloglines:Д«loglines showed a lot more items in a smaller space, which I liked. The other thing that bothered me was that the old version used a lot of screen-space where Bloglines is pretty compact. There was no easy way to view just JenSense or the Spamhuntress. The first thing youвЂ™ll notice is that items from different feeds all flow into one view. What is so different in the new version? Well, check out the previous version of Google Reader: My hunch is that IвЂ™ll use Google Reader for a week to a month, and if everything works well, IвЂ™ll switch to Google Reader completely. IвЂ™m a real power user, and the first version of Google Reader didnвЂ™t resonate with me.Д«ut after using the new release of Google Reader, IвЂ™m ready to switch. In my opinion, the first version of Google Reader was a better match for regular users who didnвЂ™t know or care about what RSS or Atom meant. IвЂ™ve been a huge Bloglines fan since I found it. So I was doing an online interview with Philipp in 2005 and got the question вЂњIn 5 words or less, what are your thoughts on вЂ¦ Google Reader?вЂќ I said вЂњFor now, I prefer Bloglines.вЂќ You need to understand that for a company as polite and consensus-driven as Google, that was a pretty negative public comment. I rarely wave a big flag and say вЂњI donвЂ™t use GoogleвЂ™s version of X,вЂќ but IвЂ™m also honest. Sometimes itвЂ™s because IвЂ™m a control freak. Sometimes itвЂ™s because I just donвЂ™t like something about the product. Sometimes itвЂ™s because the Google product isnвЂ™t really intended for people like me. But there are at least 3-4 products where IвЂ™ve preferred a non-Google alternative or havenвЂ™t used a Google product. IвЂ™ve mentioned the idea of the Google Lifestyle, where most of your data is safely stored online and accessible through any browser, you can throw almost anything into a search box to get helpful info back, and Google provides a useful service for much of your online information (search, mail, calendar, reading RSS/feeds, etc.). And yes, there is a hidden Easter Egg in this post. The summary is that itвЂ™s quite sweet and you should take it for a test drive around your feed-reading block.

The Google Reader team just launched a major new version of their feed reader.

Google reader