In the wake of Google Reader’s demise, I scrambled, like everyone else, for a solution to find a new content aggregator for my daily blog consumption habit. In the beginning, I was hoping that Digg’s Reader would be a good replacement. It ended up being a valiant effort, but no dice. I signed up on the first day – keeping in mind that it was still very much in beta. I didn’t like how there was no unread post count, and no way to connect the desktop version with the iPhone app. I also didn’t like that my “Uncategorized” subscriptions sat on top of my categories. Small stuff I know, but Google Reader had it super figured out. Oh, and it was slow as shit. And had no search function. And just… wasn’t getting me there.

Flash forward to now. Digg Reader has added all the things I immediately wanted, and sped up the service tremendously. The app is great, and so are all the added options. But it was too little, too late. Another suitor swept in from the sidelines. Enter feedly (all lowercase).

feedly just “got it.” They seemed to really understand what a content aggregator/RSS service/blog scraper should be. In the beginning, I couldn’t stand how I had to have that stupid Chrome extension installed on both my home + work computers. Not to mention there was no app to speak of. Pffft, I thought. Fuck them. I didn’t even care that they got the unread post count right.

But then…

They made everything cloud-based. They sped it up to rival Google Reader’s speed. The app picks right back up where I left off from the desktop. They have themes! And options! And lots of other little things that make me want to use exclamation points! And from a design point of view, it’s incredibly simple and functional. It also updates automatically, just like Google Reader used to do.

When I saw they were offering a lifetime pro membership for only $99, I swiped my Fidelity Investment Rewards American Express out of my wallet so fast it burned my fingers. I could imagine so many other Brooklyn-based RSS lovers doing the same thing and I couldn’t get my card number entered fast enough. But everything went through, I got the lifetime membership, and am loving the pro version so far. Can’t wait to see what else they do with it.

Also, if you’re using a content aggregator, please consider adding this blog to it. Here’s the link to copy and paste:

http://www.outandout.net/feed/

I appreciate my readers and would love to know: do you use an RSS service? Which one?

 

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