Comparison of RSS aggregators for beginners

I am writing this post after finding out that none of my friends know what exactly a rss reader is , neither what is twitter. This post is dedicated to them.

The web is huge. And you need to keep yourself updated with the happenings around you.

• Get a rss reader. I personally use google reader to read all my rss feeds. (I am a totally google man !!!! needless to say anything else ). But there are a tons of other readers

1) bloglines
This is how my bloglines page looks. The biggest advantage I find with bloglines is that it suggests a lots of rss feeds. So that you can start right away.

UI - 5/10
Suggestions - 7/10.
Reading Easeness - 6/10
Fun Suff - 2/10
Total - 20/40

2)Google reader . Advantage of google reader is it's google's reader :D. So you get added advantage of sharing the stories you like to your friends by pressing a "share" button below every post. But one thing that annoys me too much about googlereader is that the size of the windows looks too small. So you will have to do some extra scrolling. Also I find the suggestions provided by googlereader really crappy.Below is a screenshot of my Reader.
UI - 8/10
Suggestions - 2/10
Reading Easeness - 8/10
Fun Suff - 5/10
Total - 23/40

3) NewsGator : Now I love this one. Here they provide you with suggestions about topics. Click on topics you might like and you are good to go. They will add literally hundreds of subscriptions. Best part is these guys have a desktop client . A sleek looking client aggregating all the subscribed links directly on your desktop. One cool feature this has is "feeds you pay most attention to". A new reading column will appear after using newsgator for a couple of days and will show right away the feeds which you have been visiting the most.I have only one word about this ... yahooooooooooooooo!!! Their web client is also really gorgeous.


UI - 9/10
Suggestions - 6/10
Reading Easeness - 8/10
Fun Suff - 5/10
Total - 28/40

4)netvibes One of those sites which I do not use too much because of high loading time. But hey if you have a very fast connection definitely use it. Ajax powered. Might be one of the most beauiful looking aggregators out there. No much on the suggestion front though.Apart from rss it will also aggregate weather news, flicker photos, have a web note panel, and a todo task panel. You can create multiple pages to organize your stuff. And can also add a lots of widgets (though that is one of the main reason for your site to be slow).


UI - 9/10
Suggestions - 6/10
Reading Easeness - 4/10
Fun Suff - 5/10
Total - 24/40

Overall winner :: NewsGator. This post is only meant for those who do not know what a rss aggregator is or is not using one right now. So mY suggestion , if you are a out and out a google person use google reader , otherwise newsgator desktop client.


In my next posts I will post about how you can remain updated about the web in other ways.