Over the last few years, I have tried just about every RSS aggregator/reader out there – NetNewsWire, My Yahoo, RSS Bandit (written by Dare), NewsGator for Outlook, SharpReader, and so on.  Each of them had something unique to offer… but for some reason, I just never got into the “groove” with any of them.  A few days would go by, my number of unread entries would start to climb, and I would actually dread firing open the app and changing all those bold entries back to normal.  A number of times I didn't even read all the entries, I was just in a race to make myself believe I did before I went to bed.

(What is RSS?  Learn more here.  It is worth it.)

Part of the problem for me is that applications that look and feel like Microsoft Outlook tend to make me feel like I am working, and I am immediately in "information overload" mode (we get hundreds of pieces of email each day at Microsoft.)  Catching up with friends, reading Scripting.com, or checking out Engadget shouldn't be tedious.  But for some reason, it was.  Until I switched to Bloglines.

I had used Bloglines once for a couple of days but abandoned it because it didn't feel "rich" enough.  It didn't have all the bells and whistles of a NewsGator, and I mistakenly thought it would take me out of task to fire open IE or Firefox to read messages when I could just as easily do it from within Outlook.

Now, sometimes with software (or anything, for that matter) you end up thinking you need more than you really do.  And you commit to something - or purchase something - because of all the times you might need to use it, instead of all the times you will use it.  That is how I felt when I bought every possible accessory for my Pocket PC, and that is how I felt before Bloglines.  Everything that wasn’t critical to reading feeds turned out to be inconsequential; I never used those features.  The simplest solution is many times the right one.

Anyway, here is what I like about Bloglines:

• It's free.
• It's fast, responsive, and almost always available.
• It's design is minimalist - focused solely on the task at hand; reading RSS feeds.
• It is accessible from anywhere - so it works on my Mac, my PCs, and even my Audiovox Smartphone.  Roaming read/unread status makes all the difference in the world.
• It supports sharing of my feeds (check it out in the right-hand pane)
• I can scan dozens of feeds in less than a minute.  With NewsGator for Outlook and other Outlook-style interfaces, it just simply took longer.  Probably because Bloglines shows me the feed in the way it is supposed to be presented - reverse chronological order on a single page.  Not as individual messages that I have to click through. 
• They have an API.  I like that.

And here's what I want from it - if these things are already possible, pls. let me know:

• XMLHTTP to pre-cache unread items as I am navigating down the list.  9 times out of 10, I am going to click on the next bold link.  It would be great if it was already waiting for me when I do.  This isn't a huge concern though, because it is normally snappy enough not to matter.
• Enhanced keyboard shortcuts.  This is almost a must-have for me - I don’t like switching from mouse-mode to keyboard-mode constantly.  And given the option, I would rather be in keyboard mode than mouse-mode.  At a minimum, providing a simple way to go to the next unread feed would be great.  If this is already possible, I haven't figured it out.
• Easy offline reading.  This is undoubtedly possible with IE's offline mode, which just downloads the site itself, but does anyone actually use that feature?  Even providing a button or a quick tutorial in the Help section on how to do this would be great.  CDF anyone?  Why doesn't anyone use the Smart offline Favorites feature in IE5+?
• Private feeds (username/password).  This is probably difficult for them with their cache as-is, but it isn't really complete without it.  I can't read Cassie's blog!

Give it a whirl at www.bloglines.com.  It is quite cool.