Sometimes it is the little things that make a big difference when browsing RSS feeds, such as how quickly you can visit the site in your browser to view content not shown in the RSS feed (partial feeds or sometimes things like javascript widgets), or on busy blog often the comments are just as important as the article itself.
For a while now it has been possible to open a preview of a site in Google Reader using a Greasemonkey script in Firefox, and various lightbox and open in tabs scripts also exist for Bloglines .
Built In Preview
It is all very well users creating special scripts for Firefox which very few people know about, but ultimately the most useful interface features are much better if they are made available by default for all users to enjoy. Even the Google Reader Greasemonkey script has only been installed 11,000 times despite Google Reader having millions of users, even if you allow for people installing a script multiple times.
That is why I am glad that Bloglines have now added this feature as a default option within their 3 panel view, and I hope they find a way to add it to all views.
After you click the preview button, a full view of the site opens in the pane
This might lead to a few more advertising impressions and page views, but hopefully it will also lead to more interaction with blog readership. I am sure this will be very useful for those sites that still insist on publishing partial feeds.
2 Comments
This is indeed a good feature Andy!
One of the reasons why I used Desktop feed readers, was this preview feature, but now that Blog lines has it, I would get back to a web feed reader.
Thanks for the update.
Andy, I got my blog live.
http://www.igorthetroll.com/blog/
But I still have a lot to learn from you, about feeds and blog communities.
Beeing a developer and a business person is not what it is about.
Thank you for your help,
Igor