I took my subscriptions back into Bloglines today. Google Reader had some nice features, but one key thing it doesn’t have is socially networked links. There are times when I need to quickly share a few feeds with another teacher, fellow student or a friend. This is not easy with Google Reader, but with Bloglines they just view my public Bloglines account and import the feeds into their own account… it’s a bit like Del.icio.us on that count.

Another aspect that Bloglines has over Google Reader is the ability to see who else is subscribed to the feed, and then to look at their feeds. I think this is a useful assessment tool for teachers, a feedback tool for publishers, and a research tool for network surfers.

I saw this shortcoming of Google Reader straight away, but at the time I was willing to go without them for the pleasurable display features of Google Reader. But after about 2 months use, I got used to those novelties and started to really miss the social network features of Bloglines.

Basically, I prefer the simplicity and socially networked aspects of Bloglines. Google Reader thinks a bit too much for me, in its effort to make news reading more seamless. But having a machine think for me is more often than not an annoyance.