Users who hadn’t already left Bloglines for Google Reader and other functional RSS readers are doing so now, largely because Bloglines has stopped working and the company has done absolutely nothing to communicate to users what is going on or when it might be fixed.
Even Bloglines founder Mark Fletcher, who sold the company to Ask.com in 2005, is ready to jump ship. In a Twitter message yesterday he said “Bloglines, please stop sucking. It’s been a couple weeks now. I don’t want to have to move to Google Reader. Sigh.”
The problem is that Bloglines isn’t updating feeds from thousands of blogs, including this one (about a third of the feeds I follow have errors). This has been an ongoing problem. Meanwhile, those feeds are quite readable in other feed readers like Newsgator and Google Reader. The most recent TechCrunch post our 25,000+ Bloglines readers see is from May 14.
So what do you do if you are a Bloglines reader and ready to throw in the towel? Easy. Click the “Export Subscriptions” link on the bottom left of the page on Bloglines when you are signed in, and then import it into any feed reader you choose. Problem solved.
A few more Twitter users who are fed up with Bloglines:
My history:- SharpReader->BlogLines->NetVibes->Google Reader
Speed-wise GReader leads + multi-device access.
I am using the “beta bloglines” and that seems to be working fine…
Would this have anything to do with the parent company? The sudden deterioration in quality suggests key people disenchanted by something. This is their core skill (reading blogs) and messing there suggests something more serious.
I actually like Blogline’s graphical layout much better than Google’s – more information packed onto the page, easier navigation. Hope they get their act together…
I am a user of Bloglines Beta as well, and the last TechCrunch post being shown is from september 28. I got so annoyed with it that I changed to Google Reader some days ago. I don’t like to use too many Google services but my patience with Bloglines is over.
Well!
Crazy
So funny to see someone just letting their million dollar company fail.. Is there not a single employee there? Is this a ghost company?
Mmm…i never may used Bloglines…
I emailed customer support twice over the last two weeks about the problem, and they haven’t responded yet. Moved to Google reader yesterday…
YOu mean to tell me that if I were to sign up for a BlogLines account and put in my RSS feed that they won’t automaticallu pdate my blog posts, like Squidoo, Zimbio, MyBlogLog and BlogRush does ? If thatt is the case, then WTF are they in business for? And, why do they continue to stay in business?
I was always with Google on everything anyways. Oh well, that’s less millions they won’t be making anymore, now that people are jumping ship and switching to Google Reader. That’s a pretty dunb thing not to update people’s feeds on their bloglines site using automated technology, cause now, their search engine rankings are going to suffer and no clicks on their ads…lol
they suck!
Kind of same problem with Netvibes too (but not as often than with Bloglines). I have switched to Google Reader too and it works perfectly for me.
NV has some farts when (I think) trying to update a lot of feeds simultaneously, and sometimes feeds get stuck (not to mention occasional feedburner failures), but for me (~100 feeds) these aren’t as frustrating as waking up in the morning and seeing Firefox eating a half gig of RAM.
Thanks for posting this. I’ve been having the same problem too and have been thinking about switching but didn’t want to lose my current subscriptions. I was going to try Bloglines Beta but it won’t even allow me to log in.
Should be interesting how this shakes out.
well Mmm…i never may used Bloglines…
Reading RSS feeds everyday is like my lifeline, what the newspapers were to my father back in the day, so this is a big issue for me. Beta Bloglines rocked and worked great on my mobile. But yeah, like everybody else, the past few days, I just got fed up and switched to Google Reader. Just an observation, but Bloglines was definitely having trouble with the new Feedburner/Google feeds: TC and VentureBeat were broken but GigaOm still was updating no problem, for example. RSS feeds ain’t rocket science, though, right?
The thing I loved about Beta Bloglines was the intuitiveness of it. Google Reader is working fine for me now, but I’ve had to become assimilated into the Google methodology akin to Outlook vs Gmail. Resistance is futile!
The only quirk I have about Google Reader, which was also a problem with Beta Bloglines but something that I solved by switching back and forth between Classic Bloglines, was simply emailing articles while reading from my mobile. I store everything in my gmail, so it’d be nice to just forward an article there, then tag in gmail it later. Then again, gmail’s tags aren’t working well for me in the mobile version either, so the lack thereof in feature set is consistent.
If Bloglines has really been given up on, some third party ought to come in and snatch it up for cheap. When working, Beta Bloglines was really nice. Before switching to Google Reader, I tried other RSS readers and those were just crap. It was a two-horse race and now one of the horses just lost its jockey.
So true. I(ve sent them an e-mail to complain about that. I’ve received an automated answer (we need two business days, blah, blah…) but then, nothing.
I gave up on Bloglines two weeks ago and am using Newsgator now (I have a natural aversion towards Google products)…it’s not as intuitive but at least all of my feeds are updated! It’s a shame as Bloglines Beta was really great at first.
Apple Mail’s feed reader and twitter killed Bloglines for me. GR is neither here nor there.
Apple’s mail is fine but if you use multiple computers or want to read your blogs from a friend’s PC, you’re out of luck.
Thunderbird is cool for RSS…
Can I suggest people try Mippin. Its everything Bloglines and Google Reader is but much much more. It has all the blogs and if you find one missing just type in blogs url into the search box. The main difference is the content is perfectly formatted for every handset.
I haven’t been using any RSS reader in recent days so I may have missed it but I still love Bloglines, the beta and the classic. It’s still an amazing reader and interface is better than google reader.
I actually built the search engine for Bloglines (after it was acquired by Ask). It is sad to see this happen. I switched over to Google Reader a while back too
Sad to see people’s choices dwindling. Another alternative is http://www.PimpMyNews.com
It runs on iPhones, iPods (or any MP3 player), Mac/PC, with the unique option to *listen* to your blogs(i.e. while you drive, ride the train, workout, etc).
Ask IAC, Bloglines parent company to comment.
http://www.iac....IAC/Contact-Us/
Perhaps they don’t want to talk either.
If you go to their “Our Businesses” page and click Bloglines, you will find a one sentence description, and the rest of the page describes their newly revamped ASK.com property.
http://www.iac....esses/BlogLines
It looks to me like IAC is phasing out Bloglines. I think it’s a bad way to go about it though, given that they run other large sites across the web. It reflects poorly on them.
If this is how IAC does business, I’d be quite reluctant to put my trust in using their other properties.
I preferred Bloglines but I started having problems too and never heard back from them. I have switched to Newsgator and Netvibes.
I dumped Bloglines for Google Reader over a year ago.
to me, bloglines is working fine.
i.m.h.o., it continues the best
so switch already. gReader is far superior regardless.
google reader ftw
Dude — its Ask.com that killed it. CHeck out their leadership — it includes some deadbeat from Yahoo (in the Ask corporate side) and although their Bloglines GM seems okay. And we know how Yahoo really has been shining — not. All the talent left that place eons ago. And look at Ask’s new CEO, Ask.com is his part time hobby. Want to know more? Check out the lobby conf guest list from the last two years. Being on that list is the death rattle for any company.
Agreed. ASk is dead in thr water. He wanted to save bloglines, he should have sold it to Google or got a VC to back him.
As for Google reader, I use and not use it. I use the google front page configured as a reader. But the reader itself I rarely use.
I had to add all the TechCrunch sites again.
Michael, why not simply give us a list of all the RSS Readers out there instead of telling us to switch to Google?
My Path is Google Reader -> Bloglines -> Mindity
Thank goodness. I thought it was just my computer. I left for NewsGator. So far, so good. Don’t like the news stories that come up, but it is what it is. I considered Google, but personally I found iGoogle obnoxious and didn’t want to use another Google app.
Hey Ask/Bloglines folks,
If you need help with blog data we’d LOVE to help you out over at Spinn3r
We’ve already done a few large/significant crawler ports and are already hosting significant weblog infrastructure.
Feel free to ping me if necessary.
Onward!
Kevin
Guess I’m not the only one, then. I moved over yesterday.
This is such a shame. Bloglines is a fantastic site when working properly. I can’t believe they won’t consider selling if they aren’t going to maintain it.
Contact them and ask what in the blogosphere is going on:
http://about.as...anagement.shtml
If you are a frustrated bloglines user and happen to use firefox as a browser, feedly (http://www.feedly.com) can help you automatically migrate your bloglines account to Google Reader and more.
I prefer Bloglines over Google Reader but just switched to GR once and for all because BL can’t get it together. Too many feeds that just aren’t updated in BL but are everywhere else.
I hate you bloglines.
i don’t use bloglines but when i’ve tested their beta reader i thought it was very well done… but hey mike… what about feedburner? look how long it’s been since this “version” of your feed they are supposed to “manage” for you has been updated… http://feedprox....com/TechCrunch …I wonder if some peoples bloglines issues could stem from feedburner (at least a percentage of them at least)
Google Reader + Feedly = Rocks. Tried bloglines long time ago, then I switch completely to GReader for its neat UI. Can’t remember who copy who on that River Feed Pattern though.
What a pity.
Sorry to hear that. Though there’re few readers from Bloglines in China, I still got about 20 readers / day on Bloglines.
I’d say they washed their hands of the whole thing around the 25th, because that’s the last date anything was posted to the forums http://www.blog...ums/list.php?26
…except the preceding weeks of posts appear to be all spam
Way to go, Bloglines.
Thanks, that was a useful alert. I’ve saved my Bloglines feeds as an OPML file using the Export Subscriptions feature.
- Vasudev
It seems something is moving on right now… Most of stopped feeds are coming back… Techcrunch is one of those.
Maybe someone listened to all the complains.
Come on Bloglines!
It is insane how bad the bloglines service is this week.
As a web developer, keeping those feeds updated is not exactly rocket science – having an issue with traffic maybe, but not keeping feeds updated means they either have some really lousy software, engineers, sysadmins, or any combination of those.
Bloglines burped and suddenly started showing Techcrunch’s updates. However, many other feels still have the little red exclamation mark next to them and haven’t updated in a while. Time for Google Reader, I suppose. It’s a shame as I prefer Bloglines’s UI.
As of today, it looks like Bloglines is working correctly again. Unfortunately, Bloglines subscribers are still not showing up in my Feedburner feedcount.
I’m using google reader. I love the simplicity in bring to both my Iphone 3g also my PC.