There’s a really positive review of BlogBridge 4.0 here, written in Japanese. I can tell that it is positive because we are getting lots of visits from there today, lots of new users. Welcome all!

If any of our new Japanese speaking users would be able to help translate some key quotes out of that review, that would be truly great! And of course, since I can’t actually read the article I can’t respond to any questions or concerns but again, if you would like to enlighten us, we would be very greatful!

パフォーマンス改善! 情報ジャンキーのためのBlogBridge、4.0に

情報ジャンキーのためのアプリケーション「BlogBridge」が4ヶ月ぶりにメジャーアップデートして登場した。Webサービスとして普及しつつある RSSリーダに対して、デスクトップアプリケーションという視点からその強みを活かして展開しているアプリケーションがBlogBridgeだ。 BlogBridgeがどういったアプリケーションであるかは【レビュー】Webとデスクトップの垣根を崩す?-オープンソースRSSクライアントBlogBridgeをご覧いただくとして、ここでは4.0に焦点をあてて紹介したい。

I really hope I am not making a total fool of myself

Kathleen Gilroy of the otter group has put out a really good paper that reviews the whole Web 2.0 phenom from a business perspective. Kathleen writes with an approachable and easy to read style, covering topics that many BlogBridge users probably are looking to learn more about: RSS, OPML, Flickr, Office 2.0.

From the paper:

[…]I have also made profound changes in how I work and collaborate. I have come to hate email and by using weblogs and RSS I have cut my email traffic in half. I no longer use Microsoft Office software programs. I manage all of my projects and most of my business using web services. For creative stuff like writing and presentations, I use Apple desktop applications, but for the most part, I run my business on the web.

People think of me as highly productive. Actually the opposite is true: I am quite lazy and will find and take any shortcut put in front of me. Web 2.0 saves me time–my most precious commodity. I have become a denizen of Web 2.0.

Click here for the summary page
Click here for a free excerpt
Click here to order this paper - cheap

Pretty simple, actually. Take a look at the diagram below, from our famous (but not yet written) BlogBridge Picture Book. Here it is, step by step:

1. Click on “Subscribe To Feed”
2. Fill in the URL to the feed you want. Any URL that relates to the feed will do. Don’t worry about RSS, and all that nonsense!
3. (Optional) If you want to look at our expert guides, click on “Suggest” and peruse the catalog

That’s all!

Today we are releasing BlogBridge 4.0. Yeah I know, BlogBridge 3.0 was only 3 months ago, but we’ve made such major progress on the product that we just couldn’t wait to get it into your hands.

So what’s motivating this? We’ve done significant tuning work on BlogBridge and we think most users will experience significantly improved performance - especially the crazies among you who subscribe to hundreds of feeds. (Ok, that’s our claim to fame, so I shouldn’t call you crazy - I am one of you

So anyway, performance is the big thing, but it’s not all. Check out the highlights of this release (compared with 3.0)

As a gentle reminder, here are the Top 10 Reasons why you should be using the (FREE!) Sync Service. An 11th is that it provides on extra level of safety when doing software upgrades of any kind.

How to update

The short answer is that it’s automatic. Users running 3.0 and 3.0.1 will be offered a chance to upgrade. You should just say “yes” and follow the bouncing ball.

(By the way, for those of you who are users of our “Weekly Development Release” will not see a lot new, because 4.0 is essentially - but not only - a rollup of the weekly releases. The majority of our users stick with the safe “Production Release” and it’s for you guys that we are getting this puppy out. )

As usual, please contact us directly (support@blogbridge.com) or over our forum (http://www.blogbridge.com/forums) if you have any questions, concerns or issues, at all!

BlogBridge new features:

• Digg Smartfeed (with microtag support)
• Article pinning, preserving articles as long as you like
• Now also able to ‘view only pinned’ articles, as well as create SmartFeeds looking for pinning
• Audio notification for new articles
• Almanac - BlogBridge community wiki for help and support
• Whole new BlogBridge web site (you’re looking at it!)
• Minimize to system tray (on Windows)
• New ability to sort Feeds by how often you (the user) visit it

Also, these improvements:

• Major performance improvements, all over the place: startup time, memory footprint, etc.
• Delicious Smartfeed gets Microtag support
• Mac native user interface improvements
• More and more keyboard shortcuts
• Synchronization of all preferences
• Improved integration with browser launch
• Full integration with BlogBridge Expert Guides
• Searching for users
• Feed Discovery to help librarians
• Now you can see the actual contents of feeds from the Feed Library
• Tag support in OPML import

• BB - Core: Fixed minor memory allocation problem (Mac)
• BB - GUI: Fixed invalid logic of feed undiscovered dialog
• BB - GUI: Updated the look of view mode and type selection buttons (Mac)

Many operations apply to a whole Guide, for example, you can delete a Guide, create a Guide, import a Guide, mark all the articles in a Guide as being read, etc.

If you add feeds to a guide or delete a feed, then, it depends. But don’t worry, no matter what you do, you only affect your copy of the guide: no one else is affected.

So more specifically, you can always add a feed to a guide, and it will only affect you. You can also delete any feed that you added but only if you added it. If you try to delete a guide that was put there by an expert or via the BlogBridge library, then that change applies only to you and no one else.

Yes, they do and then BlogBridge automatically offers the updates to you.

It’s pretty darn simple. Go to the Guide menu in BlogBridge and choose “Subscribe to Reading List…”. If you happen to know the URL of the reading list, enter it. Otherwise, click on the “Suggest” button and peruse our fine collection of Expert Guides and choose which ones you’d like to follow.

An Expert Guide is simply a collection of feeds around a specific topic that have been selected by someone who has real expertise in that area. They are feeds that people who are interested in your topic are reading regularly—they are, in reality, feeds of influence! Save yourself some time and donwload a guide or two. They’re free. If we don’t have the specific guide you want, try Clipper.

Nope, but you should. In case you wonder, here are the top 10 reasons to use BlogBridge Service:

Top 10 Reasons to use BlogBridge Service

1. It’s free!
2. You can use BlogBridge on more than one computer and keep your subscriptions
3. Your preferences and settings also carry over to the other computers
4. It works even if one computer is a Mac and the other Windows
5. It’s very fast
6. If you ever loose your subscriptions, you can restore them from the service
7. You can take advantage of one-click publishing of Reading Lists
8. When you buy a new computer your subscriptions and settings are easily moved
9. If you use a friend’s computer or share one at the airport, you can still get your stuff
10. It’s free!