27/08: Bloglines Beta Announced

Yes, it's not really news to many by now but Bloglines have released a new Beta version of their popular RSS reader. At first glance it doesn't appear to be much more than a facelift, and I admit that it does look a little "prettier" to my jaded eyes.

I noticed that one feature is missing from the old layout and that is the number of Bloglines subscribers attributed to each feed. This will probably upset some people with large subscriber numbers but it may be appreciated by those with very few - what fragile egos we bloggers sometimes have.

There is a neat little tab enabling readers to switch between a full or "quick" view of posts listing only titles which comes in handy and further tabs enable quick selection of which posts you actually want to show in the main reading pane. Some commentators have compared the new look to Google's reader (which I've never tried) and claim there is very little innovation demonstrated in Bloglines latest effort, but, if it ain't broke don't fix it, seems to be the idea here. I've included a screenshot to pad out a rather belated post.

Choosing an online RSS Reader is purely a matter of personal preference, but if the old fashioned look of Bloglines compared to say, Newsgator, put you off, the new look might persuade a few more people to switch.