I've known for some time now that I needed to move my rss feed subscriptions from Google Reader to another reader service, but me being me I kept putting it off (procrastination is good for the soul, truly).
After reading this article from The Verge and this one from LifeHacker I decided to check out NewsBlur (even though Feedly came through as more popular, not to mention free) and went with their premium (yes $$ changed hands) account. I've spent the last few days playing with my NewsBlur account and have to say I'm quite pleased with my choice (and at $2/month don't feel too bad for paying the extra freight for it).
A neat little element I discovered today is that as part of my package I get a NewsBlur blog which is automatically embedded with stories I share from my rss feeds. It's pretty bare at the moment (obviously) but it's a feature I can see as being quite useful for me, and has been ridiculous fun to play around with.
Setting up a NewsBlur account was very simple and transferring my Google Reader subscriptions across did not require creating an archive at all (though I am still very glad that I did create an archive as it pulled everything I have on Google not just my Reader stuff). A fun element I have discovered with NewsBlur is that it gives me access to "global shared stories" and from this I can connect to stories my feeds don't normally access which other NewsBlur users have shared from their feeds. This element of connectivity is a huge bonus and perhaps the main feature I have enjoyed, as I don't recall having that sort of connectivity with Google Reader. Even though some/many of the shared stories are complete rubbish (ie, of no interest to me whatsoever) quite a few have been funny and interesting and have seen me discover new people to follow and connect with - and my rss feed has grown as a result.
Yep, today is a good day.
