For those of us really into the whole internet thing, we need our RSS feeds so we can get our information as fast as possible. You should have this blag on your RSS feed already! *shakes fist*

Let’s take a look at two big web based feed readers: Netvibes and Google Reader.

The Layout
Netvibes allows you to see the top 1-40 of any feed you have on a page at a time. As many feeds as you want on each page, pages being organized by tabs. 1-4 columns, variable width. It’s very nice to move everything around with AJAX. Click on a feed and it changes to have all the titles of that feed on the left side and as I click on them they come up.

Google Reader has all your feeds laid out on the left side, organized by category. You can then view each feed as a full page view or as a large list. It allows for as much backtracking as you need, grabbing older items the farther you scroll back.

The Customization
Netvibes allows various tweaks to each widget such as the inclusion of extra details, arrows to flip through elements, post date. Also you can change titles, keyboard shortcuts, themes, wallpapers and hide the search box. Enough stuff to make anyone satisfied.

Google Reader allows you to choose which page to start on, easy removal of the navigation pane and… well that’s about it.

The Extras
Netvibes has many extra widgets outside of the realm of RSS. From simple games to being able to check your email, gmail to hotmail to anything pop3. Facebook, myspace, notes, todo lists, embedding websites within netvibes. It also has ‘universes’ which allows any user to see whatever another user decided to make public from his/her universe.

Google Reader is inevitably tied in with everything google. Gmail, google calendar, google docs,  etc. It also has one nice button to refresh all of your feeds at once. You can share feeds with friends on google as well, easily found with google contacts.

Other Mentionables
Netvibes goes down. Recently it has done so a lot. It also sometimes marks all items of a feed unread. I usually know the last on I’ve read anyway but this can get annoying.

Google Reader is slow. You have to wait easily over a second to see the items in a feed after clicking on it. This might be acceptable except Netvibes is much faster on this.

Which one should you choose?
Play around with both. Find out what you like. One might be better for your specific needs.

I use Netvibes because I’m constantly getting updates throughout the day. The ability to see specifically what these are is very helpful for me. Take a look at my universe if you want.

I assume the setup of Google Reader allows for someone to accumulate a lot of news items and then read them all at once much faster which is better if you want to splurge feeds for a while then get back to whatever you were doing.