I’ve never really been able to find the perfect RSS reader. I’ve tried too many RSS readers to remember. They all have something wrong with the user interface. Either it’s too cluttered, slow, not configurable enough, causes crashes, doesn’t handle rich text properly, or some other annoyance. There is also the issue of desktop vs. web RSS readers. Desktop RSS readers may be faster and have a consistent user interface where a web RSS reader could be slowed down with too many of HTTP requests (to download CSS, images, or external Javascript files) or vary in appearance in different web browsers.

But now, there is something new out there. FriendFeed, founded by people that used to work at Google. It’s the new RSS reader. It monitors what your friends are doing on the Internet by looking at the services they use (Youtube, Twitter, personal blog, etc).

Besides allowing you to keep track on what your friends are doing, you can add comments or “like” entries in FriendFeed.

I mentioned that FriendFeed looks at blogs. The same thing that an RSS reader can do. Traditional RSS readers just have you view the content, sometimes offering to email the content to a friend or so forth. Simply sending a friend a link doesn’t generate the discussion threads that you often find on FriendFeed. Not only can you be informed on what’s going on with your friends, favorite bloggers, etc, you can participate in discussion and add information.

I also mentioned the problem with web and desktop clients. FriendFeed started out as a web client, but there is also Alert Thingy, a desktop client for FriendFeed that was made with Adobe AIR. While, at the time of writing, Alert Thingy has a way to go to become a polished RSS reader, we can look forward to a promising feature where an RSS reader is both on the desktop and browser, and where the reader can add his or own content directly through the feed reader.