I wrote a previous post about an Essential Feature of online feedreaders.

Unfortunately, NewsAlloy doesn’t seem to be tackling the “switching cost” issue with any sense of urgency. This is really too bad as the interface seems very responsive and well thought out. Underlying this though it would seem that they don’t really want people to switch over and use their application.

Issues:

  • Onerous Signup: You are prompted for geographic information, need to decipher a CAPTCHA, complete a detailed chalk outline of the True Cross and then wait for an emailed “Account Activation” code to get started.

    These steps are usually taken to deter people from slapping ads for natural hardening agents all over their blog and/or seeking assistance on what to do with the tens of millions of dollars they have cluttering up their third world country.

    While that is all well and good, it makes little sense for a newsreader that is PULLING information to be so draconian in account signup. This is for the exact same reason that we haven’t seen dive bombing squads of spammers attempting to mass signup thousands of accounts to check their one email account for notes from Mom: the economics just don’t work.

  • OPML Import: Here is the process you need to undergo to ATTEMPT to move your subscriptions from Bloglines to NewsAlloy.
    • Export OPML File from Bloglines
    • Save OPML File to Desktop
    • FTP File to some publicly accessible place on the Internets
    • Pause to check if you wrote the last line of instructions correctly. Yes, NewsAlloy will not let you upload an OPML File (you have to enter a URL on their import page) so unless you are both technically inclined and have your own webspace you’re out of luck. I’d guesstimate this precludes 90% of users from even attempting to switch
    • Receive a notice from NewsAlloy that my OPML file is not valid.
    • Run my OPML Export from BlogLines through the OPML Validator finding out that Bloglines like the attribute “title” and the validator likes “text” for the feed and folder names.
    • Manually correct the errors in my OPML File, Re-FTP, Try Importing one last time, only to fail and be told that my OPML File does not contain any feeds
    • Give Up, Curse Bitterly and go in search of more coffee.

I’ll give it another try in a couple weeks and see if it has improved.