Google Reader vs. Newsgator Online

On a whim I signed up for Newsgator's online RSS Reader service. I thought it was time to check out other RSS Readers. I was mostly curious as to the features other readers might offer. The one feature that I was looking for was the ability to create multiple new RSS Feeds from items I selected (ala My News Feed to the right).

Sure enough Newsgator has that capability with its News Clipping functionality. I was very excited at first, but the more I used Newsgator the more I pined for the simplicity and reliability (and features) of Google Reader. Here are some of the problems I ran into with Newsgator:

- I found the overall appearance not as pleasing as Google Reader. This is a personal judgement and others may prefer the Newsgator interface
- the News Clipping service feed would only feed 20 items -- the same as Google Reader. And what's worse for me was that the feed did not seem to update as regularly as the Shared Items feed in Google Reader. I like my news feed to be "hot and fresh" so this bothered me
- it turned out that I didn't have a lot of use currently for the ability to do another self selected feed. I spend WAY too much time on the one I have as it is. I admit that sometimes I can't even make time to read some of the items I share because I have to take so much time going through them. Adding one more to the mix would only increase the load and, well, I already have a full-time job.
- Newsgator's interface had bugs! The most annoying of which would not allow me to look at the items in any of my subfolders if all of the items were read. It would default to some other screen. This was really frustrating when I was trying to download my podcasts. It was also slower to refresh feeds and performed slower in general than Google Reader
- Google Reader also has another feature that I have come to enjoy and that is that it will recommend new feeds for you based on what you already have. I know, I know, Total Information Awareness anyone? But I have found a few good new feeds that way and so in that way I appreciate it.

Also, did I say that the Google Reader interface is simpler and easier to look at than Newsgator's?

In short Google Reader is better than Newsgator Online.