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Good Noows: A well designed news reader

goodnoows.com

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Re: Good Noows: A well designed news reader

#21

Post by ryanwaggoner »

dusklight wrote: post #13

I saw that it wanted me to sign up before I could try it out, and clicked the back button. I have no idea if your service is a good one or not, I guess I never will. And facebook integration? Seriously I think it is quickly becoming the obvious sign of a douchey website. Not saying that facebook integration isn't a useful feature in some sites, but nowadays when I see a site and it has a whole row of social network i…

And facebook integration? Seriously I think it is quickly becoming the obvious sign of a douchey website.

What? I completely disagree. I'd much rather have other options for sign-in, especially to get around the issue you're complaining about of having to sign up to check it out.

Re: Good Noows: A well designed news reader

#23

Post by kristiandupont »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #21
dusklight wrote: post #13

I saw that it wanted me to sign up before I could try it out, and clicked the back button. I have no idea if your service is a good one or not, I guess I never will. And facebook integration? Seriously I think it is quickly becoming the obvious sign of a douchey website. Not saying that facebook integration isn't a useful feature in some sites, but nowadays when I see a site and it has a whole row of social network i…

And facebook integration? Seriously I think it is quickly becoming the obvious sign of a douchey website. What? I completely disagree. I'd much rather have other options for sign-in, especially to get around the issue you're complaining about of having to sign up to check it out.

I never sign in to anything through fb connect. I am worried that it will post stuff on my wall on somehow use me to advertise to my friends without my consent.

Re: Good Noows: A well designed news reader

#24

Post by danielfranz »

Hi there, I am the developer behind Good Noows and I'd like to respond to a few posts here. I currently work on Good Noows in my spare time and I earn my living as a Product Manager at a mobile network operator. I started Good Noows because I simply couldnt find a news reader out there that serves my needs. I assume thats because it's very hard to get funding for it. Google Reader is top when it comes to functionality but I dont agree with their UI. Good Noows tries to address two segments of users and I hope that both are served ok-ish (feedback is actually quite good): 1) RSS reader users sharing my customer pain for a better browsing experience, and 2) the average consumer who doesnt even know what RSS is and just wants to set up a personal news stream (the twitter-like terminology with "stream" and "follow" is intended). Simple and quick.

- No we dont get paid for listing feeds. I'd love that because it would be a great business model.

- Sorry if the predefined sources in the catalog are not what you are looking for. Since I am German I do not have a complete overview of i.e. US-American politics blogs. I definitely was not biased when choosing them. I just used Technorati's top lists and looked for properly formatted feeds.

- The layout is not yet optimized for touch devices at all. Apologies. I hope I'll find the time to work on it soon...

- I decided to use Meebo because their sharing function does a good job. If you dont like the bar at the bottom, feel free to hide it (arrow icon at the right).

- You have to sign on before using it because I (and my legal counsels) see copyright issues when they look at my product vision and feature roadmap. If you re logged in it's private consumption. I won't display third party content publicly.

- Logging in with your social network account just simplifies registration. We dont get any personal data or anything from these auth services, just an ID (which is in some cases an email address).

Feel free to post any suggestions for feeds or features, other ideas, or just criticism here http://support.goodnoows.com I really try to do this very agile and user-focused...

Cheers

Re: Good Noows: A well designed news reader

#25

Post by marknutter »

dusklight wrote: post #13

I saw that it wanted me to sign up before I could try it out, and clicked the back button. I have no idea if your service is a good one or not, I guess I never will. And facebook integration? Seriously I think it is quickly becoming the obvious sign of a douchey website. Not saying that facebook integration isn't a useful feature in some sites, but nowadays when I see a site and it has a whole row of social network i…

As someone who creates apps that are somewhat experimental, I have to point out how irritating your comment is. He wasn't asking you to become a customer, he was asking for some feedback about his app, one HNer to another. Sometimes, that involves signing up for the service (gasp!). Perhaps this is a barrier to entry for the OP's potential users, but you could just express that in your comment in a less - to use your terminology - douchey way.

And the offhand dismissal of Facebook integration? Are you kidding? You bitch about having to sign up to use site while in the same breath complain that the OP is providing too many (convenient) ways for users to sign up for the service I'm sad this comment has so many up votes.

Re: Good Noows: A well designed news reader

#26

Post by WiseWeasel »

danielfranz wrote: post #24

Hi there, I am the developer behind Good Noows and I'd like to respond to a few posts here. I currently work on Good Noows in my spare time and I earn my living as a Product Manager at a mobile network operator. I started Good Noows because I simply couldnt find a news reader out there that serves my needs. I assume thats because it's very hard to get funding for it. Google Reader is top when it comes to functionalit…

Personally speaking, the login requirement was a non-starter. Unless you can work out a deal with content providers to supply at least a sampling of the experience without an account, I'd say you're going to have a tough time attracting users.

Re: Good Noows: A well designed news reader

#28

Post by pedrokost »

Maybe it's just me, but the only thing i don't like is the toolbar at the bottom. Maybe the site would look simpler without it. And what's worse, the bar is almost useless at least in Chrome, as a link url appears at the botton left every time i hover over one, so that the bar is barely readable. Otherwise great app. I think it will replace Google News for me. I even included a tab with Ycombinator news.

Re: Good Noows: A well designed news reader

#29

Post by dusklight »

marknutter wrote: post #25
dusklight wrote: post #13

I saw that it wanted me to sign up before I could try it out, and clicked the back button. I have no idea if your service is a good one or not, I guess I never will. And facebook integration? Seriously I think it is quickly becoming the obvious sign of a douchey website. Not saying that facebook integration isn't a useful feature in some sites, but nowadays when I see a site and it has a whole row of social network i…

As someone who creates apps that are somewhat experimental, I have to point out how irritating your comment is. He wasn't asking you to become a customer, he was asking for some feedback about his app, one HNer to another. Sometimes, that involves signing up for the service (gasp!). Perhaps this is a barrier to entry for the OP's potential users, but you could just express that in your comment in a less - to use your…

That is exactly my point.

Your unhappiness with my comment shows that you care more about what is good for your application than what is good for the user.

No matter how good your application actually is, with that kind of attitude I just can't trust you.

Your second sentence is a non sequitur btw. I'm not looking for easier ways to sign up, I am looking not to sign up at all. If a mugger provided me with convenient credit card and paypal options for how to give him my money, I wouldn't be happy with that either.

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