I keep hoping for a really great online Web desktop. All I really want from one is a *good* RSS reading experience, the ability to see my Gmail account, and a search box. I basically want a personalized online newspaper. That’s *it*. That seems pretty basic, but the experience I’ve had with them is just well, very disappointing. You’d think someone would have gotten it right by now, but apparently it’s harder to do than I would I have thought.
Here are the ones I’ve tried, and why I don’t like them:
- Google personalized homepage – Feeds break when you add more than about five feeds on a page
- NetVibes – Gets very sluggish when you add more than about five feeds per page, and breaks with lots of nasty Javascript errors
- My Yahoo! – Doesn’t display feed content in the portal, requires you to go out to the site itself
- Goowy – Flash sites are too slow for me, and I don’t like the layout it constrains you to
- Windows Live – Again, I can’t read the entire post in the portal itself. If they fix this, however, I’d switch to this site in a heartbeat.
And, what’s with the lack of OPML support from just about everybody? Is this a blatant attempt to lock me into the service? (Interestingly, Microsoft Live doesn’t like Google Reader’s OPML feed, but I haven’t spent any time looking at either so I’m not sure which one isn’t conforming to standards. Google would be my first guess.)
I also don’t want to use a brand new, small player, because I have to supply these services with some sensitive information (my email login and password, for example). And I don’t want to risk spending a few hours building a nice homepage only to have the vendor go out of business next month (which brings up an interesting point, which is that none of these guys have a business model to write home about).
I guess the old adage "if you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself" may apply.
Oh, and one more thing. Is it so hard to find out my location from my IP address? Why do all these places show me the weather for Happy, TX or Seattle, WA when I live in Chicago, and that’s obviously where my IP is coming from? Little touches like this would go a long way to making a more enjoyable end-user experience.
I just found a post by Richard McManus reviewing other feed readers out there, although he doesn’t go into much depth about the online ones that I’m looking for.
