State of the blog.

This post marks the 102nd day that this blog has been live. They say that the first 100 days in office are the most important and the same can be extended to blogs, many fall short and are just left to decay, but not this one. You will never get rid of me, unless I die, which would be quite unfortunate.

I thought that it was time for a state of the blog address, it the same as a state of the union address expect with less money, less politics and you have to imagine me as Bill Clinton, but without the long line of women (old joke, I know.)

At the time of writing this post there have been 1169 views over 22 different posts (this post being the 23rd.) That is amazing, people are actually taking the time out of their day to read what I write on this little corner of the Internet, I have only one question for you, are you high?

The most successful post of mine is "In Summly, I'm Feedly My Current FlipBoard While Checking My Pulse." I think I got the timing right with that one, I posted that about 2 weeks or so before Google announced that they were going to retire Google Reader, because of this, the post gained another batch of views, jumping from about 25 to 121.

Just to cover myself, I didn't actually know that Google was going to retire Reader until, it was announced, I do not have inside connections. Although I really wish I did. It puts me in a tough position, do I sell my soul to Google or Apple?

I also made it into Jibby's top one hundred blogs list, the fact that someone wrote about this blog on there blog (blogception) is not just amazing, but also incredibly humbling . +Sam Bowden thank you so much.

Unfortunately blog everyday in April did not do as well as I hoped, mostly because I was too ill to write anything. If you want to know the details, one end was like the Nigeria Falls, the other was like the Iguazu Falls.

This blog to me is more then a blog, it's an extension of myself and my inner thoughts, it's a place where I can get things out in the open, clear my mind and get a second opinion. If you haven't already taken up blogging, do it. It is so good for you. I even persuaded one of my friends +Lauren Brabrook to start up. Her blog can be found here: www.onedayiwillflyaway20.blogspot.co.uk

I am also going through a period of professional change. In my career, there are going to be a lot of opportunities for me to climb the ladder (for want of a better phrase.) It has taken a lot of risks on my part, I left a very safe job at River Island to do this, budgeting is now my number one priority, the last thing that I want to do right now is go back into retail, although I've got over a years experience over two different stores in a tonne of different positions, it is not what I want to do with the rest of my life.

I'm also seeing changes in myself, growing up, I was the mature kid, the one who doesn't seem to have a childhood but is rather born as a adult. Growing up, I was a very shy and reserved kid, but I'm getting rid of that shyness that used to stop me from doing what I wanted. I always had to have someone with me when I go to new places or taking to new people, now I can't think of anything better to do.

I was the teachers pet of all teachers pets, but with style, if I didn't like the piece of homework that I was given, I would just do it on the bus. I would simply remember what was told to me taking a mental image of the whiteboard or the slide and recalling it when I needed. I am now reaping the benefits of that, I can recall whole conversions, and remember so many random facts. I could make a whole new post on how my brain works.

Yet, I cannot remember peoples names.

This may seem like a oxymoron (look at me using big words) but I'm maturing while becoming a kid again, I find so many things wonderful now, from aspects of science that I ignored at school because I just wanted to learn about space and not the cells that are in plant, to fiction.

I used to think that fiction was a waste of time, the only stories that I cared about was Harry Potter, there is a whole other story about how I got into Harry Potter, but I'll save that for another post.

In Summly, I'm Feedly My Current FlipBoard While Checking My Pulse

For today's blog post, I thought that I would do something a little bit different. So I am going to review some apps. I've decided that I am going to review feeders. It made sense, I am moving into journalism and I want to be able to access the latest news from as many different organisations as possible.

Google Currents

The first app I tried was Google Currents. Straight away I logged in to my Google account (the dark overlord that tracks our porn) and the blogs that I was subscribed to were there, also quite a few suggestions for other feeds, I very easily add what felt like a million feeds.
The design is very clean and professional, it feels like an app that I can use in the office and the boss won't be over my shoulder every five minutes, however (and this is a personal choice) I don't like that I have to swipe while I am reading the article to read more, not a lot of info is put onto the page.
All said and done, it does do what it says on the tin, it's not a bad app

Feedly

Imagine if you will, the new guy in the office who is young and talented but in a few months time his soul will be crushed by the corporate snakes and he will lose faith in humanity. Feedly is like that new guy, before the soul crushing. Feedly has a much better layout and design then currents and it is quite easy to find what you are looking for.
Under the bonnet there are a few good options to customize the app to your liking. Feedly follows the rule of content is king, the colorful designs are there, but they are hidden in the menus, to allow for more space for the feeds that you want to read. I also like the fact that YouTube videos are embedded into the app, although I would like to be able to sign in to my YouTube account to view my subscription.

FlipBoard 

I like things that are flippy, FlipBoard satisfies that need. The child in me spent about 10 minutes messing with the animation. They have clearly thought about the design although personally I don't like drawstring used to access the search menu. 
I like that I can connect to my Twitter and Facebook accounts, however I do wish that I could update my accounts from the app, also the Facebook annoying only shows ten updates at a time and takes a good minute or so to download more and one of my friends post takes up a whole screen, there is miles of space that the app wastes. However the bigger design suits twitter and makes it more visually pleasing, however it is not practical for what twitter was designed for. I do wish that i could update my timeline or twitter feed from the app.

Pulse

Pulse could have been really good, it has been let down by it design, the main page looks as if it has been copied from the BBC News app, the only difference is that it has been painted black instead of red. The rest feels soulless and devoid of life and passion. However it does load that content quickly.
But then we get to Facebook integration, it not automatically there, (I signed in with my Facebook account) you have to search for the feed and then add it to your contents, but once you've done that, it will only let you view posts that have links on them, which to me devoid the point of the whole feed.

Summly

Let's start with the good points, visually it is the design equivalent of the best XXX rated app porn, you can also search for content by keywords, so you can find news on certain subject or in a certain area of the world. But it takes forever to update and I think that there are far to many swipe commands. 
It also crashed three times during the first start up and twice again during my testing. I really want Summly to be good, I used to have it, before the October update, and I really hoped that it was improved. Sadly it wasn't.

For me it's between Currents and Feedly, they are designed and easy to use, although Feedly is slightly deeper than Currents. The both follow the rule of content is king and don't distract the reading experience with bells and whistles. I think Feedly swings the balance into its favor, but I would love to see social interaction in the form of Facebook, Twitter and other social networks like LinkedIn and Google+.

How did I do on my first app review? Do you agree with my verdict? Did I miss any good apps? Should I do another post like this? If so, how can I make it better?

Follow me on twitter @tomnnedsmore