ResourceBlog Article: Bloglines Version 3.0 Beta Now Available to the Public

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Sunday, 26th August 2007

Bloglines Version 3.0 Beta Now Available to the Public

New: Bloglines Beta, V.3
Bloglines* has just gone public a new beta release (available for Firefox and IE 7 browsers) with a bunch of new features, with more to come.

To access the beta simply go to this url: https://beta.bloglines.com/.

Don't like the beta? Use http://www.bloglines.com and you'll still find complete access to the current version.

You can find a sizable chunk of info via the Bloglines blog and by way of the "About Bloglines" link located in the upper-right corner of the beta page.

Fast Facts and Favorites:
Drag and Drop Feed Management and Your Personalized Start Page
Create your Personalized Start Page (add feeds, remove feed) by simply dragging them from your list of feeds (left box) to the right window or pane. To remove, simply click the "x" in the upper right hand corner of any/all feeds in the right box.

Left Box or Window
+ Add Feeds Here
+ Delete Feeds (Garbage Can Icon)
+ Add Folders
+ Simultaneously Mark All Feeds as Read, Show Updated Feeds Only,

Three Feed Views
A) Quick View, all of your feeds in one place. You can often get a bit more info about a post by cursoring over the title of a post. Click to read the full text (of a post). Simply drag various feeds to also reorganize the look/order of the page to your liking.

B) Full View
See the title, and the snippet/or the beginning of a full text post.

C) Three Pane View
Left Pane (Blog Titles and number of unread posts)
Top Middle Pane (Titles on posts)
Bottom Middle Pane Text of Post, Snippet or Headline Only, Click to read full text.
Page will Automatically Update (without reloading the page) using an AJAX Implementation

You can easily drag panes/windows and make them any size you like.

Remember, this is a beta and much more is in the works. Feel free to share your comments in the forums. If you would like, feel free to email Gary and he'll be happy to pass along your comments, ideas, etc. directly to Bloglines General Manager, Eric Engelman. Make sure to put re: Bloglines in the subject line.

* Gary is Director of Online Information Resources at Ask.com. ResourceShelf and DocuTicker are independent of this work and compiled by a group of librarians from the U.S. and UK.

POSTSCRIPT: The The Ask.com Blog and Feed Search interface remains available. One feature that many have expressed an interest in is the ability to subscribe to a keyword search feed, subscribe to a blog feed or post to a social bookmarking service DIRECTLY from the results page using one or more services including not only Bloglines (part of Ask) but also Google Reader, My Yahoo, AOL, digg, del.icio.us, etc.

POSTSCRIPT 2: In many cases, podcasts can be played directly from Bloglines. A great collection of podcasts (nearly 1000 programs) comes from PublicRadioFan containing public radio programs delivered from around the globe in podcast format.