A month or so ago we were informed that Bloglines was going away. For many of us, Bloglines was the first rss tool we used to follow bloggers and topics. For those of us assisting others make use of technology, it was likely the tool we taught. Free services face a certain reality no matter how useful the service. There must be some revenue from somewhere to maintain the service.
I did not know the history of Bloglines, but according to wikipedia it was sold to ask.com in 2005. Whatever Ask’s original idea, it decided to give up on the service and shut it down on Oct. 1. many of us moved on. Just a few days ago it was announced that Bloglines was available again.
I think the way this played out was not good. Because Bloglines was not available, I explored a bit and found a method for following feeds that was superior to my experience with Bloglines. I use an iPad app, Newsrack, to follow feeds from Google Reader. The big advantage of this arrangement is the opportunity to process information by sharing items I identify as useful to Instapaper, Delicious, or my email. At this point Bloglines is going to have to offer some new features to get me back.
