Like a phoenix, Google Readers death led to its resurrection.
After its death, half-a-dozen alternatives arose from Google Reader’s ashes some of which barely work.
Others, however, eclipse even Google Readers functionality.
One such beta software comes from a surprising source: America Online, or AOL.
Second, it uses a superior hotkey map.
Third, it offers better view options.
On the downside, and potentially a deal-breaker, AOL Reader lacks a dedicated smartphone app.
Overall, AOL Reader provides a sterling reading experience with a great deal of room for potential growth.
AOL Readers six major features are:
Importing your feeds: Getting started with AOL Reader is extremely easy.
Before doing anything else, you must have an AOL account.
If you don’t own one, sign up .
After getting an account, you’ll then need to sign up for the beta.
Google has eliminated the feed importation process.
AOL offers several kinds of views: pane, card, list and full.
Adding New Feeds to AOL Reader
Adding new feeds to AOL Reader doesn’t require much effort.
AOL Reader’s Hotkeys
AOL Reader’s hotkeys remain nearly identical to Google Reader.
If you aren’t familiar with it, I highly recommend familiarizing yourself.
We have aGoogle Reader cheat-sheetready for you, which novice RSS reader usersabsolutelyneed to use.
It will save you a ton of time.
AOL fixed this issue, by making it bring up the window in a background tab.
Folders and Starring
Organizing your feeds with AOL Reader remains similar to Google Reader’s organization.
My impression is that AOL provides an easier to use folder creation process.
Also, they allow for dragging-and-dropping to reorder folders.
Browsing tohttps://reader.aol.comautomatically launches you into “pane view” mode.
As it stands, it’s the only reader implementation using a mobile friendly web design.
On the Downside
Everything about AOL’s Reader isn’t roses.
In comparison to Feedly, AOL compares well, but not well enough.
Feedly’s dedicated mobile app alone makes it impossible for me to use any other Reader service.
Feedly’s Must Read feature makes it particularly hard to switch over to AOL’s service.
Conclusion
AOL threw together a winner in record time.
Although it’s currently in beta, AOL Reader represents an overall improvement over Google Reader.
For those of you with a burning passion for RSS, check out my freeMakeUseOf Guideon the subject.
